Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 
■*     IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/ancienthistorytoOOwestrich 


."O^  .•^^ 


N^rf^ 


t)'l\A 


Julius  Caesar.    The  Naples  bust. 


ALLYN   AND    BACON'S  SERIES   OF  SCHOOL   HISTORIES 
CHARLES  KENDALL  ADAMS,  General  Editor 


ANCIENT   HISTORY- 


TO  THE   DEATH  OF  CHARLEMAGNE 


BY  ^ 


WILLIS   MASON   WEST 

PROFESSOR   OF    HISTORY   IN   THE    UNIVERSITY   OF   MINNESOTA 


ALLYN    AND    BACON 


ALLYN   AND   BACON'S  SERIES  OF 

SCHOOL    HISTORIES 

12mo,  half  leather,  numerous  maps,  plans,  and  illustrations 


ANCIENT    HISTORY.      By  Willis   M.  West  of  the  University  of 
Minnesota. 

MODERN   HISTORY.     By  Willis  M.  West. 

HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND.      By  Charles  M.  Andrews  of   Bryn 
Mawr  College. 

HISTORY  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.     By  Charles  K.  Adams, 
and  V/illiam  P.  Trent  of  Columbia  University. 

THE  ANCIENT  WORLD.     By  Willis  M.  West. 

Also  in  two  volumes:  Part    I :  Greece  and  the  East. 
Part  II:  Rome  and  the  West. 


Main  Lib  Bisx»  ^ 

COPYRIGHT,    1902,   BY 
WILLIS  MASON  WEST. 


Nortnooti  ^resa 

^.  8.  Cusliing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 

^'orwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE. 

The  study  of  history  in  secondary  schools  offers  many 
problems.  Foremost  in  demanding  decision  stands  always 
the  question  of  the  proper  distribution  of  time.  The  old  one- 
year  course  in  universal  history  is  confessedly  inadequate, 
unattractive,  and  destitute  of  disciplinary  value.  No  possible 
series  of  courses  on  single  countries  can  be  sufficiently  com- 
prehensive.    Some  compromise  is  inevitable. 

The  most  promising  plan  yet  proposed  is  the  one  outlined 
in  the  memorable  Keport  of  the  Committee  of  Seven  to  the 
National  Historical  Association  in  1899.^  In  accordance  with 
that  plan,  the  series  of  school  histories  of  which  this  book  is 
the  first  will  give  two  volumes  to  a  general  survey  of  the 
world's  history.  The  present  volume  deals  with  the  early 
development  of  those  historic  elements  whose  interworkings 
have  since  produced  our  modern  world.  As  is  explained  more 
fully  in  the  opening  pages  of  the  text,  it  deals  with  those 
Oriental  peoples  who  were  to  contribute  directly  to  European 
civilization,  and,  more  in  detail,  with  Greeks,  Romans,  and 
Teutons,  whose  life  in  each  case  was  to  be  taken  up,  almost 
as  a  whole,  into  our  modern  life ;  and  the  story  is  traced  until 
these  formative  elements  have  been  brought  together  and  until 
their  fusion  is  well  under  way  in  the  empire  of  Charlemagne. 
A  second  book  will  treat  the  subsequent  working  of  these 
forces  in  "  Modern  History."  The  present  volume,  however, 
may  be  followed  instead  by  the  study  of  England,  France,  or 
Germany,  or  by  intensive  topic  study;  it  is  designed  for  the 
first  year's  work  in  history  in  high  schools,  but,  by  expanding 
or  contracting  the  suggestions  for  topical  reports  and  for 
library  work,  it  may  be  adapted  to  older  or  younger  students 
and  to  courses  of  varying  length. 


1  The  Study  of  History  in  Schools,  The  Macmilian  Co.,  $0.60. 
iU 

221060 


IV  PREFACE. 

In  selecting  subject-matter  within  the  wide  limits  of  "An- 
cient History,"  I  have  desired  especially  to  emphasize  the 
unity  in  historical  development  and  to  bring  out  the  value  of 
the  past  in  explaining  the  present.  The  expansion  of  civilized 
life  is  followed  from  the  early  patches  in  the  Nile  and  Eu- 
phrates valleys,  first  over  Western  Asia,  then  around  the  Medi- 
terranean coasts,  and,  finally,  into  the  British  Isles  and  the 
German  forests ;  and  at  each  new  advance  an  attempt  is  made 
to  show  something  of  the  reaction  of  the  environment  upon 
the  older  germs. 

To  do  these  things  effectively  calls  for  rigid  economy  in  the 
use  of  space.     Two  particulars  may  be  mentioned :  — 

a.  Wars  receive  little  attention.  Military  history  is  valua- 
ble, no  doubt,  if  one  really  studies  strategy ;  but  compromises 
that  tell  the  story  and  leave  out  the  strategy  are  not  valuable 
as  history,  whatever  they  may  be  as  literature.  Of  course, 
"civilization  has  come  riding  on  a  gun-carriage;"  but  this 
truth  can  be  taught  better  by  compact  treatments  of  condi- 
tions preceding  a  war  and  of  the  results  that  followed  it,  than 
by  lengthy,  but  necessarily  imperfect  or  misleading,  stories 
of  battles  and  sieges.  This  sentiment  may  have  a  familiar 
sound,  but  its  radical  application  in  this  volume  justifies  its 
repetition.  Thus,  twenty-eight  pages  are  given  to  the  Athe- 
nian Empire  and  less  than  four  to  the  Peloponnesian  War,  — 
these  four,  too,  mainly  to  the  internal  revolution  in  Athens; 
two  pages  contain  Alexander's  wars,  while  five  are  given  to 
his  constructive  work  and  twenty  more  to  the  results  in  the 
widespread  Hellenic  civilization  that  followed;  and  of  the  four- 
teen pages  allotted  to  Caesar,  two  suffice  for  his  campaigns. 

b.  Critics  have  long  regretted  that  our  school  courses  dwell 
upon  the  legendary  or  romantic  early  periods  of  Greek  and 
Koman  life  to  the  strange  neglect  of  the  later  periods,  more 
complex,  but  so  much  richer  in  historical  teaching.  More 
important  than  the  semibarbarous  Spartan  camp  is  the  great 
Hellenic  world  after  Alexander,  with  its  suggestive  experi- 
ments in  federal  government  and  with  its  political  and  social 


PREFACE.  V 

conditions  so  like  the  modern  world ;  more  valuable  even  than 
the  ill-understood  quarrels  between  plebeians  and  patricians  is 
the  Eoman  imperial  world,  on  which  later  European  life  is  so 
directly  based.  I  have  intended  the  present  volume  to  do 
somewhat  toward  remedying  this  Neglect,  especially  in  the 
case  of  the  Roman  Empire.  Here,  too,  a  space-saving  device 
has  been  adopted.  A  fundamental  difficulty  has  always  been 
the  many  imperial  reigns  with  the  wearisome  repetition  of 
like  details.  This  volume  groups  the  outlines  of  the  reigns, 
by  periods,  into  some  four  pages  of  tables,  for  reference,  and 
so  secures  ninety  pages  for  topical  treatment  of  organic  move- 
ments and  of  the  growth  of  institutions.  As  a  rule,  the 
emperor's  individuality  was  but  a  trifling  factor  in  determin- 
ing the  trend  of  development  in  the  complex  society  of  which 
he  was  a  part ;  and  it  is  manifestly  unwise  to  sacrifice  a  simple 
and  logical  arrangement  for  an  arbitrary  and  confusing  one, 
depending  upon  accidents  to  single  lives. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  biographical  element  is  sometimes 
an  essential  part  of  historical  explanation,  and,  with  right,  it 
is  attractive  to  students.  Even  a  book  of  this  kind  permits 
and  demands  a  few  individual  portraits ;  and  I  have  hoped,  in 
particular,  to  give  a  vivid  impression  of  the  personality,  as 
well  as  the  work,  of  Themistocles,  Pericles,  Socrates,  Epami- 
nondas,  Philip,  Alexander,  the  Gracchi  brothers,  Sulla,  Caesar, 
Augustus,  Constantine,  Theodoric,  Clovis,  and  Charlemagne. 

A  text-book  in  history  for  high  schools  should  assist  the 
teacher  in  securing  that  training  which  history  alone  in  the 
high  school  curriculum  can  give.  I  trust  that  my  several 
years'  experience  in  teaching  the  subject  in  high  schools  has 
not  been  without  profit  here.  Attention  is  called  to  a  few 
features  in  which  this  volume  is  designed  to  be  helpful. 

a.  It  aims  to  help  teach  the  use  of  a  library,  by  giving  spe- 
cific references  upon  many  topics,  and  by  naming  many  topics 
to  be  looked  up  from  more  general  references.     The  teacher, 


VI  PREFACE. 

of  course,  will  modify  or  extend  topics  and  references  at  will, 
but  to  leave  him  to  do  all  work  of  this  kind  is  to  throw  un- 
reasonable burden  upon  him  and  to  compel  neglect.  The 
many  quotations  woven  into  the  text  ought  also  to  be  made  a 
means  of  introducing  students  to  standard  books.  In  the 
reference  lists  "  for  advanced  students  "  the  needs  of  teachers 
also  have  been  kept  in  mind.  The  text  omits  all  the  stock 
anecdotes;  they  are  easily  found,  and  they  come  with  more 
effect  from  the  teacher  or  from  students  to  whom  they  may  be 
especially  assigned  for  reports.  More  books  are  sometimes 
referred  to,  especially  in  the  general  lists  at  the  close  of  chap- 
ters, than  any  one  school  library  will  contain,  but  every  library 
should  have  some  of  those  mentioned  on  each  topic.  Books 
are  often  indicated  by  abbreviated  titles  or  by  the  author's 
name ;  in  any  case  of  uncertainty,  the  full  title  can  be  found 
easily  in  the  classified  bibliography  in  the  Appendix.  This 
bibliography  itself,  with  its  prices  and  especially  with  its 
dates,  will  be,  I  hope,  not  without  use. 

h.  The  Table  of  Contents  gives  a  minute  analysis  down  to 
the  content  of  each  paragraph  in  the  book.  More  important 
still,  it  shows,  by  its  tabular  form,  the  logical  relation  of  the 
paragraphs  within  each  larger  subdivision  and  the  relations 
of  these  larger  units  to  each  other.  This  feature,  I  think,  is 
somewhat  unique.  To  keep  the  analysis  clear  compelled  a 
strictly  logical  order  in  writing  the  book.  Whether  this 
scientific  arrangement  has  been  secured  at  the  cost  of  other 
merits  the  public  must  decide ;  but  secured,  I  think,  it  unques- 
tionably has  been.  The  syllabus,  therefore,  should  be  used 
constantly  both  in  advance  and  review. 

c.  Various  forms  of  review  exercises  are  suggested  at  appro- 
priate points  (see  pages  75,  127-128,  198,  245-246,  371,  and 
457);  but  the  value  of  the  Index  for  review  deserves  special 
notice.  As  the  Syllabic  Table  of  Contents  gives  a  bird's-eye 
view  of  a  period,  so  the  Index  affords  direction  for  cross 
review.  A  number  of  the  topics  most  important  for  such 
study  are  indicated  in  the  Index  by  black  italic  type.      The 


PREFACE.  Vii 

many  cross  references  in  the  text  should  be  helpful  in  a  like 
manner. 

d.  Brief  suggestions  for  map  study  are  given  in  one  instance 
in  the  text  (page  76),  but  of  course  every  map  should  be  the 
occasion  of  some  study  in  class.  In  particular,  a  series  of 
progressive  maps  like  the  last  eight  or  nine,  showing  the 
civilized  world  at  short  intervals  of  time,  affords  material  for 
comparison  and  discussion  that  should  not  be  neglected.  The 
book  is  unusually  rich  in  maps. for  the  confused  period  from 
400  to  800  A.D.,  when  the  face  of  Europe  was  changing  so 
rapidly,  and  when  the  germs  of  modern  nations  were  beginning 
to  take  form. 

To  enumerate  authorities  for  the  treatment  of  so  many 
periods  and  countries  would  be  perhaps  graceful  in  the  author, 
but  wearisome  to  the  reader.  In  general,  the  views  presented 
are  strictly  orthodox.  The  question  of  "  race ''  belongs  not  to 
history,  nor  to  philology,  but  to  ethnology ;  and  in  conformity 
to  the  verdict  of  its  proper  science,  the  Aryan  race  supersti- 
tion is  discarded.  On  the  vexed  problem  of  Eoman  patricians 
and  plebeians,  I  follow  the  usually  accepted  and  better  estab- 
lished theory,  rather  than  a  recent  one  which  would  make  the 
patricians  simply  the  chiefs  of  plebeian  tribesmen.  The  new 
idea  has  the  merit  of  simplicity,  but  it  is  based  apparently 
upon  that  ignorance  which  the  unscientific  Roman  historians 
always  displayed  on  all  difficulties  about  their  early  history ; 
and,  despite  some  vehement  criticism,  the  other  theory  not 
only  has  the  support  of  the  greatest  names  in  Germany  and 
England,  but  it  is  also  in  accord  with  what  the  comparative 
study  of  primitive  societies  makes  probable.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  older  view  of  early  Greek  civilization,  by  universal 
consent,  needs  restatement,  though  that  statement,  perhaps, 
has  not  yet  been  found.  I  have  preferred,  therefore,  to  use,  in 
some  measure.  Professor  Ridgeway's  theories,  recent  as  they 
are,  rather  than  solemnly  to  repeat  an  undoubted  error. 

It  is  inevitable,  of  course,  in  a  book  of  this  kind,  that  cleri- 


viii  PREFACE. 

cal  errors  and  more  serious  ones  should  have  slipped  in;  I 
shall  be  grateful  to  teachers  or  readers  who  will  call  my 
attention  to  any  of  them. 

It  remains  for  me  to  express  my  obligation  to  friends  who 
have  helped  in  the  preparation  of  the  volume.  Dr.  Charles 
Kendall  Adams,  the  editor  of  the  series,  so  long  and  widely 
known  as  an  eminent  historical  teacher  and  writer,  read  the 
manuscript,  and  I  owe  much  to  his  searching  comment  and 
kindly  encouragement.  The  ill  health  which  has  compelled 
his  lamented  withdrawal  from  the  presidency  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Wisconsin  has  of  course  made  it  impossible  for  him  to 
give  the  proofs  the  critical  attention  they  would  otherwise 
have  received  from  him,  but  here  too  he  has  offered  valuable 
suggestion.  Dr.  John  E.  Granrud,  of  the  department  of  Latin 
in  the  University  of  Minnesota,  whose  excellent  Roman  Con- 
stitutional History  has  just  appeared,  read  critically  the  proofs 
for  the  Roman  period;  Professor  John  Sinclair  Clark,  head 
of  the  Latin  department,  read  part  of  the  same  period ;  and 
Professors  Frank  M.  Anderson  and  Albert  B.  White,  colleagues 
in  my  own  department,  have  read  the  proofs  for  the  Roman 
imperial  and  the  Teutonic  periods.  I  desire  to  record  my 
sincere  gratitude  to  all  these  gentlemen  for  many  suggestions, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  to  absolve  them  from  responsibility  for 
errors  I  may  have  retained.  I  am  under  particular  obligation 
to  my  wife,  Elizabeth  Beach  West,  who  read  the  manuscript, 
as  it  progressed,  with-  constant  and  invaluable  criticism.  Her 
close  touch  with  the  subject  from  the  teacher!s  point  of  view 
made  her  suggestions  especially  helpful.  I  should  be  ungrate- 
ful not  to  acknowledge  also  her  material  assistance  in  prepar- 
ing maps  and  tables  and  in  work  upon  the  proofs. 


WILLIS  MASON  WEST. 


Universitt  of  Minnesota, 
Minneapolis,  March  1, 1902. 


ANALYTICAL  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTION. 


I.     What  History  shall  we  study  ? 

SECTION  PAOB 

1.  Prehistoric  life  excluded 1 

2.  Some  historic  races  excluded 2 

3.  The  field  selected  and  the  periods 3 

4.  The  two  great  divisions  of  history 5 

5.  The  subject  of  this  volume 6 

11.     "Race"  in  History. 

6.  The  Aryan  fiction .  6 

7.  The  three  great  races 8 

8.  Some  of  the  "white"  races         ...»,..  8 

9.  European  nations  and  these  races       .        .        .        .        .        .9 

10.    Conclusion  as  to  treatment  of  race 9 


PART   I.  — ORIENTAL   HISTORY. 

CHAPTER   I. —A   PRELIMINARY   SURVEY. 

11.  The  rediscovery .       11 

12.  The  three  centers 12 

13.  The  periods .14 

CHAPTER   II.— EGYPT. 
I.     Geography. 

14.  Territory 16 

15.  Significance  of  the  Nile        . 15 

16.  Political  geography  —  growth  of  a  kingdom        ....  17 

ix 


ANALYTICAL  TABLE   OF  CONTENTS. 


IL     Political  History. 

8BCTION  PAGE 

17.  Memphite  period 17 

18.  Theban  period :    a.  earfy  Theban  ;    h.  Hyksos  rule ;    c.  later 

Theban 18 

19.  Saite  period 20 

20.  Under  foreign  rule  —  Alexandrian  period 21 

IIL     People,  Society,  Civilization. 

21.  Races  and  population 22 

22.  Social  classes  and  government 22 

23.  Position  of  woman 27 

24.  Industries  and  art 27 

25.  Literature  and  the  hieroglyphics 30 

26.  Science 31 

27.  Religion 32 

28.  Morality 34 

29-36.                          IV.     Illustrative  Extracts         ...  36 


CHAPTER  IIL— THE  TIGRIS-EUPHRATES   STATES.  ^ 

37.  L     Unity  of  the  East  after  1600  b.c.        ,.        .  40 

II.     Geography. 

38.  The  two  rivers 40 

39.  Natural  and  political  divisions 41 

III.     Political  History. 

40.  The  first  Chaldean  Empire 42 

41.  Assyria 44 

42.  The  new  Babylonian  Empire 45 

IV.     Society  and  Culture. 

43.  Races 46 

44.  Cuneiform  writing 46 

45.  Literature  and  science 48 

46.  Industrial  arts  and  applied  science      ......  50 

47.  Social  classes 61 

48.  Architecture  and  sculpture 62 

49.  Religion  and  morality 63 

60-65.                          V.    Illustrative  Extracts  ....  54 


ANALYTICAL  TABLE   OF   CONTENTS.  xi 


CHAPTER   IV.— THE   MIDDLE   STATES. 

SECTION  PA6K 

56.  The  Hittites 67 

I.     Phoenicians. 

57.  The  first  men  who  went  down  to  the  sea  in  ships       ...  57 

58.  Function  —  disseminators  of  civilization  and  inventors  of  the 

alphabet 58 

59.  Political  and  social  conditions 59 

11.     Hebrews. 
A.     Political  History. 

60.  Men  of  the  desert ;  the  age  of  the  patriarchs      .        .        ...  61 

61.  Settlement  in  Canaan  ;  the  period  of  the  judges          ...  61 

62.  The  kings  and  the  prophets 61 

63.  Division  —  Israel  and  Judah  :  decline  .        .        .        .        .62 

64.  Priestly  rule .-      .        .62 

B.     The  Mission  of  the  Jews. 

65.  The  first  monotheistic  people 63 

66.  The  influence  of  race  or  of  environment 63 

67.  Historical  growth  of  the  faith 64 


CHAPTER   v.  — THE  PERSIAN  EMPIRE. 
I.     The  Map  grows. 

68.  New  states  :  Persia  and  Lydia 66 

69.  Rise  and  extent  of  the  Persian  Empire 67 

II.  The  Persian  Contributions. 

70.  Religion  and  morals 68 

71.  Political  contributions 69 

III.  Persia  and  the  Scythians. 

72.  Persia  the  champion  cf  civilization 69 

IV.     Imperial  Government. 

73.  The  old  kingdom-empires .70 

74.  Government  by  satraps 71 

75.  The  system  perfected  by  Darius 71 

76.  Post  roads 72 

77.  Permanence  of  the  system 72 


XU  ANALYTICAL  TABLE   OF  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTEE  VI.  — A  RETROSPECT. 

SECTION  PAGE 

78.  Progress  in  Oriental  history 74 

79.  Limitations  in  Oriental  culture 74 


PART  II.  — THE   GREEKS. 
CHAPTER  L  — INTRODUCTORY  SURVEY. 

I.      EUROPEAK   AND   ASIATIC   TypES. 

80.  Differences  in  civilization .76 

81.  Basis  of  the  distinction  found  in  physical  differences .        .        .      77 

II.     Greece  typical  of  Europe. 

82.  The  "  most  European  of  European  lands  "  ....      78 

83.  Special  geographical  features  and  their  influence:    a.  many 

small  units ;  h.  the  sea  the  bond  of  union  ;  c.  certain  prod- 
ucts are  incitement  to  trade ;  d.  vicinity  of  the  open  side  to 
Asia ;  e.  diversity  and  beauty  of  natural  features  ...      78 

84.  A  problem  :  results  due  to  land  or  race  ? 80 


CHAPTER  IL  —  PREHISTORIC  GREECE  — TO   1000  B.C. 
I.     Sources  of  our  Knowledge. 

85.  "Homer"  and  his  age 82 

86.  Archaeology  confirms  Homer,  but  reveals  earlier  ages  also         .  82 

II.  Two  Prehistoric  Civilizations. 

87.  Mycenaean  culture 86 

88.  Achaean  culture 88 

III.  Society  on  the  Economic  Side. 

89.  Simplicity 90 

90.  Occupations  and  classes .91 

IV.     The  Tribe  —  Units  and  Ties. 

91.  The  clan  :  the  clan  religion .91 

92.  Phratry  and  tribe 92 

93.  The  tribal  city 93 

94.  The  city  the  limit  of  political  organization  in  Greece  ...  93 


ANALYTICAL  TABLE   OF  CONTENTS.  xiii 


V.     Early  Political  Organization. 

SECTION  PACK 

95.  King 94 

96.  Council  of  chiefs 94 

97.  Folk-moot 94 


CHAPTER  IIL— FROM  THE   MIGRATIONS  TO   THE 
PERSIAN    WARS,    1000-500  B.C. 

I.       SUB-PERIODS    AND    CHARACTER. 

08.    The  gap  in  the  evidence 97 

n.     "Races." 

99.  Ionian  (Pelasgic),  Achaean,  Dorian,  Aeolian     ....      98 

III.     What  made  a  Greek  a  Greek  ? 

100.  Unity  of  Hellenic  culture.    Bonds  :  a.  language  and  literature  ; 

b.    belief  in  kinship ;    c.    the  Olympian  religion,  with  its 
games,  oracles,  and  Amphictyonies       .....      99 

IV.     The  Map:  The  Dorian  Invasion;  Colonization. 
A.     First  Period^  Beadjustments  in  the  Aegean^  to  900  B.C. 

101.  Character  and  cause 101 

102.  Result  to  civilization .        .     101 

103.  Political  results .102 

104.  The  Hellenizing  of  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor       ....     102 

B.     Second  Period^  Wider  Colonization.,  800-600  B.C. 

105.  Character  and  cause .     102 

106.  Distribution  of  colonies 103 

V.     The  Political  Revolution. 

107.  The  kings  overthrown  by  the  chiefs 103 

108.  The  oligarchies  overthrown  by  the  tyrants        ....     104 

109.  The  tyrants  pave  the  way  for  democracies        ....     106 

VI.     The  Rise  of  Sparta. 

110.  Early  Sparta  —  reforms  and  growth 106 

111.  Political  constitution  . 107 

112.  Classes  in  Laconia     .        . 108 

113.  Social  institutions      ....;....  110 


Xiv  ANALYTICAL  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

VIL     Athens  to  500  b.c. 
A.    Preliminary  Considerations. 

SECTION  PAGE 

114.  Two  peculiar  conditions Ill 

115.  Other  causes  favoring  a  many-sided  development     .        .        .112 

116.  A  type  of  other  Greek  states 113 

B.    Eupatrid  Bule  —  after  the  First  Political  Bevolution. 

117.  The  decline  of  the  Homeric  kingship 113 

118.  Political  rule  of  the  Eupatrids 114 

119.  Economic  oppression 114 

120.  The  order  of  reform  :  social  and  political  .        .        .        .116 

C.     The  Early  (^Political)  Attempts  to  overthrow  the  Eupatrids. 

121.  Eupatrid  supremacy  shared  with  the  hoplites  ....  115 

122.  The  four  classes  :  political  power  based  in  part  on  wealth        .  115 

123.  Imperfect  results :  attempts  at  tyranny 116 

124.  Draco  :  fixed  laws 116 

D.    Solon  —  Overthrow  of  the  Eupatrids. 

125.  Continued  strife ;  appointment  of  Solon  as  dictator  .        .        .117 

126.  Social  reform  :  the  shaking  off  of  burdens  (a,  6,  c,  d)       .        .  118 

127.  Political  reforms 119 

128.  Minor  reforms '    .  120 

129.  Summary  of  the  Solonian  reforms 120 

E.     The  Tyrants. 

130.  Anarchy  renewed .  121 

131.  Peisistratus,  560-527  b.c. 121 

132.  Emulsion  of  the  Peisistratidae 122 

F.     Cleisthenes  —  A  Democracy. 

133.  Vigor  of  free  Athens 123 

134.  The  conditions  and  aims  of  the  new  constitution      .        .        .  123 

135.  The  denies  and  geographical  "  tribes  " 124 

136.  The  state  enlarged 126 

137.  The  power  of  the  Assembly  greatly  enlarged    ....  126 

138.  Minor  reforms 126 

139.  Ostracism 126 

Tabular  review  of  Athenian  constitution 127 


ANALYTICAL   TABLE   OF   CONTENTS.  XV 


Vin.     Intellectual  Development  and  Social  Life. 

SECTION  PAGK 

140.  Architecture,  painting,  and  sculpture 129 

141.  Lyric  poetry 129 

142.  Philosophy 131 

143.  Religion  and  character 132 

144-151.                       IX.     Illustrative  Extracts         .        .        .  134 


CHAPTER  IV.— THE   PERSIAN  ATTACK. 
I.     A  New  Era. 

152.  Expanding  Greece  thrown  back  upon  itself       ....  136 

153.  The  subdivisions  of  the  epoch 136 

II.     Conditions  for  Resistance  to  Persia. 

154.  Three  sections  of  Hellas 137 

155.  Magna  Graecia  and  Carthage    .        .        .        .        .        .        .  137 

156.  Greece  :  wars,  class  strife,  the  Peloponnesian  League       .        .  137 

III.     The  Ionic  Revolt. 

157.  Condition  of  the  Asiatic  Greeks 139 

158.  Revolt  ;  Athenian  aid 139 

IV.     The  First  Two  Attacks  upon  Greece,  492-490  b.c. 

159.  Relation  to  the  Ionic  revolt 140 

160.  The  call  for  earth  and  water :  140 

161.  Marathon 140 

162.  Moral  importance  of  Marathon 141 

V.  Athens  from  Marathon  to  Thermopylae. 

163.  Themistocles  and  the  interval  of  preparation    ....  142 

164.  The  oligarchs  crushed  (ruin  of  Miltiades)          ....  142 

165.  Aristides  banished  ;  Themistocles'  naval  policy        .        .        .  143 

VL     The  Main  Atta-ck,  480-479  b.c. 

166.  The  Persian  preparation 143 

167.  The  Greek  preparation 144 

168.  The  three  lines  of  defense  :  Tempe,  Thermopylae,  the  Isthmus  144 

169.  Loss  of  Thessaly '       .         .145 

170.  Thermopylae 145 

171.  The  strategy  of  Themistocles 146 


XVI  ANALYTICAL  TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 


8KCTION  PAGK 


172.  Salamis 149 

173.  Illustrative  incidents  after  the  battle 150 

174.  The  temptation  of  Athens 150 

17#.    Plataea 151 

176.  The  significance  of  the  Greek  victory 152 

CHAPTER   v.— THE  AGE   OF  PERICLES  (FROM  THE 
PERSIAN  THROUGH  THE  PELOPONNESIAN  WAR). 

I.     Growth  of  the  Athenian  Empire. 

177.  Preparation  at  Athens  :  the  building  of  the  walls  and  Peiraeus  154 


178.  A  fleeting  vision  of  a  united  Hellas 

179.  The  new  prominence  of  Athens 

180.  Athens  assumes  leadership  of  the  Ionian  Greeks,  479  b.c. 

181.  The  confederacy  of  Delos,  478  b.c.    . 

182.  Work  and  growth  of  the  Delian  League    .         .         .         . 

183.  Changes  in  the  character  of  the  league      .         .         .         . 

184.  The  league  develops  into  an  Athenian  empire   . 

185.  The  rift  between  Athens  and  Sparta  .        .         .         . 

186.  Marvelous  activity  of  Athens :  growth  of  a  land  empire    . 

187.  Loss  of  the  land  empire 

188.  The  Thirty  Years'  Truce  and  Peace  with  Persia 


156 
157 
157 
158 
159 
160 
161 
162 
163 
164 
164 


II.     The  Empire  and  the  Imperial  City  in  Peace. 

A.     Material  Strength. 

189.  Relative  power 165 

190.  Population 165 

191.  The  imperial  revenues .        .  166 

B.     Government  of  the  City  and  Empire. 

192.  Steps  in  development  from  the  constitution  of  Cleisthenes       .  167 

193.  The  generals  (strategi)  and  the  "leaders  of  the  people"          .  167 

194.  The  Assembly 168 

195.  The  waning  of  the  Areopagus 169 

196.  The  dicasteries .169 

197.  State  pay  for  public  service 170 

198.  Political  capacity  of  the  Athenians 171 

199.  Imperfect  nature  of  Athenian  democracy          ....  172 

200.  Leaders  and  parties :  Pericles 173 

C.     Intellectual  and  Artistic  Athens. 

201.  The  true  significance  of  Athens  in  history         .        .        .        .174 

202.  Architecture  and  sculpture 176 


ANALYTICAL  TABLE   OF  CONTENTS.  XVU 


SECTION  PAGE 

203.  Painting 180 

204.  The  drama         . 182 

205.  Pericles'  policy  as  to  theater  money 184 

206.  History 185 

207.  Philosophy 186 

208.  Education 188 

209.  Summary  :  extent  and  degree  of  culture 190 

210.  Summary  —  limitations:  a  militant  civilization,  and  for  males 

only 191 

III.     The  Peloponnesian  War. 

211.  Causes .  192 

212.  Resources  and  plans  of  the  contestants 193 

213.  An  unforeseen  factor  —  the  plague 193 

214.  Summary  of  events  and  traits   . 194 

215.  The  closing  years  :  rule  of  the  Four  Hundred  at  Athens  ;  Per- 

sian gold  to  aid  Sparta  (who  betrays  the  Asiatic  Greeks)      .  194 

216.  Aegospotami;  the  capture  of  Athens 195 

217.  IV.     The    Western    Greeks    in    the    Fifth    and    Fourth 

Centuries     . 196 


CHAPTER  VL— FROM  THE  FALL  OF  ATHENS  TO 
THE  FALL  OF  HELLAS,  404-238  B.C. 

218.  The  decline  of  the  city  state 199 

L     Spartan  Supremacy,  404-371  b.c. 
A.     General  Character. 

219.  Harmosts  and  decarchies 199 

220.  A  famous  example:  the  "Thirty"  at  Athens  .         .         .         .     200 

221.  Spartan  decay 201 

B.     Wars  and  Leagues  to  the  Peace  of  Antalcidas. 

222.  March  of  the  Ten  Thousand  ;  renewal  of  the  war  with  Persia  202 

223.  The  Corinthian  War  —  a  league  against  Sparta         .        .         .  202 

224.  Conon  at  Cnidus  —  ruin  of  Sparta's  maritime  supremacy  .  203 

225.  Iphicrates'   peltasts  —  Sparta's    supremacy   in   land  warfare 

disputed .         .203 

226.  Peace  of  Antalcidas  —  Persia  and  Sparta  support  each  other, 

387  B.c 204 


XVIU  ANALYTICAL  TABLE   OF  CONTENTS. 

C.    From  the  Betrayal  of  Hellas  to  Leuctra,  S87-S71. 

SECTION  PAGB 

227.  High-handed  aggressions 204 

228.  The  Chalcidic  Confederacy  crushed 205 

229.  Revolt  of  Thebes ;  the  new  Athenian  Confederacy  .        .        .  205 

230.  Leuctra ;  overthrow  of  Sparta .  206 

U.     Thebak  Suprbmact. 

231.  Brief  supremacy  of  Thebes 208 

IIL     Rise  of  Macedon. 

232.  Political  demoralization  in  Hellas :  decline  of  the  city  state      .  209 

233.  Macedonia  a  national  monarchy 209 

234.  Progress  of  the  conflict 211 

235.  The  Macedonian  army 212 

236.  Chaeronea ;  congress  of  Corinth 212 

237.  The  history  of  Hellas  merged  in  that  of  a  ivider  Hellenism      .  213 


PART  III.— THE  GRAECO-ORIENTAL  WORLD. 

CHAPTER  I.— THE  MINGLING  OF  EAST  AND  WEST. 
I.     The  Conquests  of  Alexander  of  Macedon. 

238.  Alexander's  youth  and  training 214 

239.  Accession  and  restoration  of  order 215 

240.  Persian  campaigns .  217 

241.  Campaigns  in  the  Far  East 218 

II.     Results  of  Alexander's  Work. 

242.  Alexander's  expanding  views  :  design  to  merge  East  and  West 

in  a  common  civilization 219 

243.  Hellenism  the  active  factor :  the  many  Alexandrias  .        .  220 

244.  Reaction  upon  Hellas :  economic  and  scientific  development    .  222 

245.  Summary 223 

CHAPTER  IL— TO   THE   ROMAN  CONQUEST. 
I.     The  Political  Story. 

246.  The  wars  of  the  succession,  323-280  B.c 225 

247.  The  situation  in  the  third  century :  parallelism  with  modern 

Europe 226 


ANALYTICAL  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS.  xix 

SECTION  PAGE 

248.  The  Gallic  invasion,  278  b.c 226 

249.  Tlie  decline  of  the  Hellenic  world     .        .        .        o        .        .  227 

II.     The  Leading  States  in  Outline. 

250.  Syria 228 

251.  Egypt 228 

252.  Macedonia 229 

253.  Rhodes  and  Pergamum 229 

III.     Society. 

254.  General  culture 230 

255.  Literature 230 

256.  Painting  and  sculpture 231 

257.  Philosophy .  232 

258.  Libraries  and  museums  ("universities")          ....  234 

259.  Science 235 


CHAPTER   III.  — GREECE  FROM  ALEXANDER  TO 
ROME. 

I.     The  Federal  Character  of  the  Period. 

260.  The  political  situation 237 

261.  Earlier  and  minor  federations 237 

262.  The  Aetolian  League 238 

11.     The  Achaean  League. 

263.  Origin        . 238 

264.  Constitution 239 

265.  Expansion  beyond  Achaea 241 

266.  Conflict  with  Sparta  (social  reform  at  Sparta)  ....  242 

267.  Macedonian  supremacy  restored 244 

268.  Final  decline  of  the  league 245 


PART   IV.  — ROME. 

CHAPTER  L— INTRODUCTORY   SURVEY. 
I.     The  Place  of  Rome  in  History. 

269.  The  exponent  of  organization  and  law 247 

270.  The  Roman  and  the  Greek :  work  and  character      .        .         .     248 


XX  ANALYTICAL  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


II.     The  Land. 

BEOTION  PAGE 

271.  Limits :  the  Apennine  peninsula 249 

272.  Relations  of  its  geography  to  its  history :  a.  political  unity ; 

6.  direction  of  first  outside  effort  toward  the  West ;  c.  Medi- 
terranean dominion 249 

III.     Peoples  of  Italy. 

273.  A  land  of  mingled  races 251 

274.  Leading  peoples  :  Italians,  Greeks,  Gauls,  Etruscans        .        .     251 

275.  "  Fragments  of  forgotten  peoples "  (Ligurians,  etc. )        ,        .     254 

IV.     Geographical  Advantages  of  Rome. 

276.  Rome  differentiated  from  other  Italian  cities  by:   a.  central 

position ;  6.  commercial  advantages ;  c.  character  as  a 
"mark"  state;  d.  the  group  of  hills,  and  consequent  tend- 
ency to  federation 254 

V.     Legendary  Character  of  Early  History. 

277.  Old  writers  and  their  sources 256 

278.  Abstract  of  early  legends -257 

279.  Attitude  of  scholars  toward  them  to-day 258 


CHAPTER  IL  — PROBABLE  CONCLUSIONS  AS  TO 
REGAL  ROME. 

I.    The  Growth  of  the  City. 

280.  Unificationof  the  "Seven  Hills"     .        .        .     \      ^.        .260 

281.  Growth  beyond  the  walls 260 

II.     Citizens  and  Non-Citizens. 

282.  Patricians 262 

283.  Clients 263 

284.  Plebeians  .        .        . 264 

III.     Patrician  Organization. 

285.  The  family  :  patria  potestas 264 

286.  Gentes  and  curias 265 

287.  Exclusion  of  the  plebeians  from  the  curias        ....     266 


ANALYTICAL  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS.  xxi 


IV.     Religion. 

SECTION  PAGE 

288.  Sources:  a.  ancestor  worship;  6.  nature  worship;  c.  Greek 

influence 266 

289.  Character :  abstract  and  formal 266 

290.  Priesthoods :  augurs,  pontiffs,  vestals 267 

291.  The  Roman  religion  a  political  instrument :  prevalence  of  legal 

fiction 267 

V.     Earliest  Political  Institutions. 

292.  King  (rex) 269 

293.  Patrician  Assembly  (comitia  curiata) 269 

294.  Senate 270 

VI.     Prehistoric  Revolutions. 

A.    A  Centuriate  Assembly  {containing  Plebeians  also) 
replaces  the  Curiate  (^Patrician)  Assembly. 

295.  The  "  census  of  Servius ":  the  army  of  centuries     .        .        .    270 

296.  The  assembly  of  centuries 271 

297.  Aristocratic  character  of  the  centuriate  assembly      .         .        .     272 

298.  The  real  gain  of  the  plebs .273 

B.     Overthrow  of  the  Kings. 

299.  The  older  and  later  kingship  (the  "tyrants")  .        .        .     273 
800.   Interpretations  of  the  legends  of  Tarquin's  expulsion :    an 

aristocratic  and  gradual  change 274 


VII.  The  Consulship  a  Modification  of  the  Kingship. 

301.  The  consuls  and  the  royal  imperium 275 

302.  The  chief  limitations :  the  mutual  veto  and  brief  term      .         .     275 

303.  Minor  checks :  the  independence  of  the  officials  and  the  Vale- 

rian appeal 275 

304.  Roman  political  moderation  the  real  check       ....     276 

305.  The  dictatorship :  a  temporary  revival  of  the  old  kingship  to 

meet  a  crisis 277 

VIII.  The  Senate  after  the  Expulsion  of  the  Kings. 

306.  Indirect  augmentation  of  influence    .        .        .     •    .        .        .    277 

307.  IX.     Summary:   The  Debt  to  Regal  Rome     .        .     277 


XXU  ANALYTICAL  TABLE   OF  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  HL— CLASS  STRUGGLES  IN  THE 
REPUBLIC,   610^67  B.C. 

aBOTION  '  --— —  PAGE 

308.  I.     Character  of  the  Period        .        .        .    279 

II.     Position  of  the  Classes  after  510  b.c. 

309.  Rome  a  patrician  oligarchy 279 

310.  Plebeian  loss  politically 280 

311.  Plebeian  loss  in  standing  at  law 280 

312.  Plebeian    loss  economically:    patrician   monopoly   of  public 

land ;  increase  of  plebeian  taxation  ;  plebeian  losses  in  war    280 

313.  The  result  a  contest  between  the  orders :    the  progressive 

standard  of  the  plebeians 282 

III.     Steps  in  the  Progress. 
A.     Tribunes  of  the  Plebs. 

814.   Eirst  secession  of  the  plebs 282 

315.  Tribunes  and  their  veto  on  single  executive  acts       .        .        .     283 

316.  Subsequent  growth  of  the  tribuneship :  veto  on  state  action ; 

judicial  power 283 

B.     Eise  of  the  Plebeian  Assembly. 

317.  Ancient  plebeian  organization  by  tribes 284 

318.  This  assembly  wins  recognition  (for  plebeian  concerns)  in  the 

state 284 

319.  The  result  a  double  state  ;  violence  over  agrarian  questions     .     285 

C.     The  Decemvirs. 

320.  Plebs  demand  written  laws  ;  the  two  boards  of  decemvirs        .     286 

321.  The  patrician  counter-revolution  (Appius  Claudius)         .        .     287 

322.  Second  secession  of  the  plebs.      The  Twelve  Tables  and  the 

Horatian  law,  449  b.c.     Plebeian  assembly  on  a  par  with 

the  centuriate 287 

323.  The  result :  two  states,  plebeian  and  patrician.     The  problem 

to  fuse  them.      Social   fusion,  445  b.c,  and  demand  for 
political  fusion 288 

D.     Admission  to  the  Consulate. 

324.  Consular  tribunes 288 

325.  Continued  patrician  resistance :  creation  of  censors ;  consuls 

or  consular  tribunes  to  400  b.c 288 

326.  The  Licinian  Rogations,  367  b.c 289 

827.  Political  fusion  completed,  367-300  b.c 290 


ANALYTICAL  TABLE   OF  CONTENTS.  xxiii 


CHAPTER  IV.  — UNIFICATION  OF  ITALY,  867-266  B.C. 
I.     Progress  before  367  b.c. 

SECTION  PAOK 

328.  Gains  under  the  kings,  and  the  reaction  to  449  b.c.  .        .        .  292 

329.  Slow  gains  after  449  B.C. .293 

330.  A  brief  interruption  :  the  Gauls  sack  Rome,  390  b.c.        .        .  293 

II.     The  Real  Advance,  367-266  b.c. 

331.  Latium  and  southern  Etruria 294 

332.  Campania  (first  Samnite  War) 294 

333.  The  great  Latin  War  of  338  b.c 294 

334.  Struggle  with  the  Samnites  for  supremacy  (second  and  third 

wars) 295 

335.  Magna  Graecia ;  the  war  with  Pyrrhus 295 


CHAPTER  v.  — UNITED   ITALY  UNDER  ROMAN  RULE. 

I.     Classes  of  Political  Communities. 

A.     The  Bomaii  State. 

336.  Extent ;  classes  of  citizen-communities 297 

337.  Adaptation  of  the  tribes  to  expanding  citizenship     .        .        .     298 

338.  Rights  and  obligations  of  citizens 298 

B.     Political  Classes  in  Subject  Italy. 

339.  Latin  colonies 299 

340.  Praefectures 301 

341.  Allies 301 

C.     General  Besult  —  A  Confederacy  under  a  Queen-city. 

342.  Advantages  and  disadvantages  of  subjects        ....     301 

343.  Power  and  policy  of  Rome 302 

II.     The  Perfected  Constitution  of  the  Republic. 
A.    A  New  Aristocracy. 

344.  Rule  of  the  nobles 804 

B.     Political  Machinery  and  Working. 

345.  The  three  popular  assemblies :   apparent  growth  toward  de- 

mocracy          304 

346.  The  administrative  officers 306 


XXiv  ANALYTICAL   TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

SECTION  PAGE 

347.  The  senate  and  its  all-directive  power 806 

348.  C.     Democratic  Theory  and  Aristocratic  Practice  ,        .  S07 

IIL     Society  in  Rome  and  Italy. 

349.  Economic  conditions 308 

350.  Moral  character  and  ideals 308 

351.  The  reaction  of  Magna  Graecia  upon  Rome      ....  309 

IV.    The  Army. 

352.  The  flexible  legion  (contrasted  with  the  phalanx)     .        .        .  810 

353.  The  Roman  camp .        .310 

354.  Roman  discipline 311 

355.  Changes  with  extension  of  service  :  a  professional  army  ;  pro- 

consuls    311 


CHAPTER  VL— EXPANSION  CONTINUED,  264-146  B.C. 
THE   WINNING  OF  THE   WEST. 

I.     The  Two  Rivals  in  the  West. 

356.  Italy  in  266  B.C.  one  of  jffue  great  Mediterranean  powers  .        .    813 

357.  Carthage  the  only  rival  in  the  West 313 

358.  The  issue  at  stake ,    816 

II.  First  Pcnic  War  ("The  War  for  Sicily"). 

359.  Occasion    . 816 

360.  Relative  strength  of  combatants 816 

361.  Value  of  the  sea  power 317 

362.  Special  events  illustrating  Roman  public  spirit  and  the  need  of 

permanent  military  organization 318 

III.  From  the  First  to  the  Second  Punic  War. 

363.  Completion  of  the  widening  of  Italy  to  her  natural  limits 

(Sicily,  Sardinia  and  Corsica,  and  Cisalpine  Gaul)        .        .819 
864.    Organization  of  "  provinces  " 819 

IV.     Second  Punic  War  ("The  War  for  Spain"). 


.365.  General  character  (the  Hannibalian  War) 

366.  Occasion :  Carthaginian  dominion  in  Spain 

367.  Hannibal's  invasion  of  Italy :  to  Cannae  . 
.368.  Fidelity  of  the  Latins  and  Italians  to  Rome 
369.  Rome's  grandeur  and  constancy  in  disaster 


320 
322 
323 
823 


ANALYTICAL  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS.  XXV 


SEOTION  PAGB 

370.  Lukewannness  of  Carthage  and  her  allies         ....  824 

371.  Hannibal's  disappointment:    changed  character  of  the  war 

after  Cannae 324 

372.  *' Hannibal  at  the  Gates " 326 

373.  Hasdrubal's  invasion :  battle  of  the'  Metaurus  ....  326 

374.  Scipio  carries  the  war  into  Africa :  battle  of  Zama ;  peace       .  327 

375.  Rome's  vengeance  in  Italy         .        .        .        .        .        .        .  327 

376.  The  result  of  the  war :  world  dominion    .        .        .        .        .  328 


V.    Expansion  in  the  West  from  201  to  146  b.c. 
A.     Spain. 

877.   Heroic  war  for  independence 828 

378.  Romanization 328 

J3.     Africa  {The  Third  Punic  War:   the  War  for  Africa). 

379.  Rome  seeks  perfidious  excuse  against  Carthage        .        ,        .  830 

380.  Carthage  disarmed  ;  Rome  declares  war 330 

381.  Heroic  resistance 331 

382.  Carthage  blotted  out :  the  "  Province  of  Africa  "...  332 


CHAPTER  VIL— WINNING  THE  EAST,   201-146  B.C. 
I.     An  Attempt  to  stop  with  Protectorates. 

383.  Beginnings  of  influence  in  the  East  before  200  b.c.  :  the  lUyr- 

ian  pirates  and  the  First  Macedonian  War    ....     334 

384.  Second  Macedonian  War  (201-196  b.c):  Macedonia  a  depend- 

ent ally  ;  Greek  states  "  allies  " 334 

385.  The  war  with  Antiochus :  Syria  an  "  ally  "      ....    335 

386.  Rome  drawn  on  to  a  system  of  protectorates    ....    336 

IL     Annexation:    the  Protectorates  become  Provinces. 

887.   A  gradual  process 336 

388.  Change  in  Roman  policy  and  its  causes 337 

389.  Steps:  Third  Macedonian  War;  Greece,  146  a.  d.  ;  the  "Prov- 

ince of  Asia,"  133  b.c,  etc 837 

III.     Result  in  146  b.c.  —  A  United  Graeco-Roman  World. 

890.   Rome  the  sole  great  power 338 

391.   Distinction  between  the  Latin  West  and  the  Greek  East .        .    339 


XXVI  ANALYTICAL  TABLE   OF  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  Vin.  — NEW.  CIVIL  STRIFE,   146-49  B.C. 
I,    Fbbliminart  Survey. 

SBCTION  PAOE 

392.  Summary  of  the  periods  of  the  republic 340 

393.  The  republic  unprepared  for  world-dominion    ....     340 

394.  The  four  g»eat  evils:   internal  strife  between  rich  and  poor; 

Rome  and  the  allies ;  Italy  and  the  provinces ;  barbarian 
attacks 341 

395.  The  need  of  a  new  system  :  preparation  for  the  empire    .        .     341 

IL     Thk  Evils  in  Detail. 
A.     In  Borne. 

396.  Economic  and  moral  decline  due  to  the  wars  (extremes  of 

wealth  and  poverty) 342 

397.  Continued  decline  of  the  yeomanry  after  the  wars  (*' economic 

laws") 343 

398.  Violence  of  the  rich  as  an  added  cause  of  the  decay  of  the 

yeomanry 344 

899.   Political  results  :  decline  of  the  senate  and  growth  of  the  mob    346 

B.     In  Italy. 

400.  Sharpened  distinctions  and  growing  Roman  insolence      .        .     346 

C.    In  the  Provinces. 

401.  Deterioration  of  the  provincial  system      .        .        .        •        .  846 

402.  "  Marks "  of  a  province 347 

403.  The  governor     .        .        .        .  ]• 347 

404.  '» The  estates  of  the  Roman  people  " 848 

D.     Slavery. 

405.  Extent  and  brutal  character 349 

406.  Slave  wars 349 

III.     The  Gracchi:  Attempts  at  Peaceful  Reform. 
A.     Tiberius  Gracchus. 

407.  Previous  suggestions  for  reform  :  error  of  Cato  and  hesitancy 

ofScipio         .        .' *         .850 

408.  Character  of  Tiberius 351 

409.  Tiberius'  agrarian  proposals :  reclaim  public  land  ;  let  out  in 

small,  inalienable  leases  ;  create  standing  commission  .        .     351 


ANALYTICAL  TABLE  OE   CONTENTS.  xxvii 

SECTION  vxan 

410.  The  struggle  and  the  victory 352 

411.  Further  proposals  ;  Gracchus  murdered 352 

412.  The  work  stands  nine  years  until  the  senate  attempts  a  reaction  353 

B.     Caius  Gracchus. 

413.  Character  and  aims 354 

414.  Political  measures  to  win  allies :  the  populace  and  the  knights  354 

415.  Economic  reform 355 

416.  Personal  rule :  an  uncrowned  "  tyrant " 355 

417.  Attempt  to  extend  citizenship :  Caius  killed     ....  356 

418.  Overthrow  of  the  work  of  the  brothers 366 

IV.     Marius  and  Sulla,  106-78  B.C. 

419.  The  new  character  of  Roman  politics 867 

420.  The  war  with  Jugurtha :  new  leaders 357 

421.  Marius  "the  savior  of  Rome"  (Cimbri  and  Teutones)     .         .  358 

422.  Civil  disorder  ;  retirement  of  Marius 359 

423.  Proposal  of  Drusus  to  extend  citizenship  ;  the  Social  War        .  359 

424.  Italy  becomes  one  state 359 

425.  Civil  war  between  Marius  and  Sulla  ;  first  rule  of  Sulla    .         .  360 

426.  Rule  of  Marius  and  Cinna  ;  the  massacre          ....  361 

427.  Sulla  in  the  East ;  the  new  civil  war         .         .         .         .         .  361 

428.  Sulla  "permanent  dictator"  ;  stamps  out  the  democrats.         .  362 

429.  Restoration  of  senatorial  rule 363 

430.  "  Sulla  the  Fortunate  "  :  character  and  place  in  history  .        .  363 

V.     PoMPET  AND  Caesar. 

431.  The  work  East  and  West 864 

A.  Pompey''s  Leadership. 

432.  Pompey  and  Crassus ,  864 

433.  Pompey's  first  chance  for  the  crown 364 

434.  Second  chance  (Roman  expansion  in  the  East)         .        .         .  365 

435.  New  leaders  in  Pompey's  absence  ;  Catiline's  conspiracy          .  366 

B.  The  Bise  of  Caesar. 

436.  Caesar  forms  the  first  triumvirate :  his  consulship  ;  reforms  at 

Rome 368 

437.  Caesar  in  Gaul :  expansion  in  the  West 369 

438.  Rupture  between  Caesar  and  Pompey 870 


XXviii  ANALYTICAL  TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 

PAET  v.— THE  ROMAN  EMPIRE:  GRAECO- 
ROMAN  WORLD. 

CHAPTER  L— FOUNDING  THE   EMPIRE,  49  B.C.-14  A.D. 

L     The  Five  Years  op  Julius  Caesar,  49-44  b.c." 

A.     The  Moral  Question. 

SBOTtaW  .  PAGB 

lrf9.  Monarchy  at  Rome  inevitable  —  from  (a)  corruption  at  the 
capital,  (6)  danger  on  the  frontiers,  (c)  misgovemment  in 
the  provinces 372 

440.  Monarchy  right :  Caesar  the  hope  of  the  subject  nationalities  .     373 

441.  The  question  relative :  "  Caesarism"  not  always  right,  nor  an 

unmixed  good  even  at  that  time 374 

B.     The  Civil  War. 

442.  Caesar  crosses  the  Rubicon  ;  campaign  in  Italy        .        .        .     376 

443.  Campaigns  in  Spain  and  Greece  (PAarsaZws,  48  B.C.)       .        .     375 

444.  The  four  remaining  campaigns  (Thapsus  and  Munda)      .        .    376 

C.     Caesar^s  Constructive  Work. 

445.  Caesar's  policy  of  clemency      . 377 

446.  His  plan  for  the  form  of  the  new  monarchy      ....  377 

447.  General  measures  of  reform 378 

448.  The  provinces 379 

449.  The  unforeseen  interruption 380 

450.  Caesar's  character  and  place  in  history 381 

II.     From  Julius  to  Octavius,  44-31  b.c. 

451.  Antonius  and  Octavius 882 

452.  Formation  of  the  second  triumvirate 383 

453.  Proscription 383 

454.  Final  overthrow  of  the  oligarchs  ;  Philippi       ....  383 

455.  Dissensions  among  the  triumvirs ;  Actium        ....  384 

456.  ni.     Octavius  Augustus,  31  B.C.-14  A.I).       .        .     384 

CHAPTER  IL  — THE   EMPIRE   OF  THE   FIRST  THREE 
CENTURIES:    AUGUSTUS  TO   DIOCLETIAN. 

I.     Table;  of  Emperors. 

457.  Nature  of  the  treatment :  topical  not  narrative         .        .        .387 


ANAI.YTICAL  TABLE   OF  CONTENTS.  xxix 


A.     Two  Centuries  of  Order,  31  S.C.-193  a.d. 

BECTIOK  PAGE 

458.  The  Julian  Caesars  (Romans) 387 

459.  Flavians  (Italians)  and  Antoniues  (Provincials)      .        .        .    388 

460.  General  character  of  rulers .    389 

461.  B.     A  Century  of  Disputed  Succession,  193-284  A.D.     (»  The 

Barrack  Emperors'^''') 389 

II.     The  Constitution. 
A.     The  Central  Government, 

462.  Republican  forms 390 

463.  The  imperial  power 391 

464.  The  establishment  of  the  empire  a  gradual  process  :  important 

steps  at  the  death  of  Augustus       .         .         .        .         .        .     392 

465.  Nature  of  the  succession :   the  weak  point  in  the  imperial 

constitution 393 

B.     Local  Government. 

466.  Municipal  institutions        .        .         .        ...        .        .        .     393 

467.  The  provinces ;  representative  assemblies         ....    395 

III.     Imperial  Defense. 
A.     The  Army. 

468.  Numbers    ..." 395 

469.  Sources ,        .        .     396 

470.  Industrial  and  disciplinary  uses 396 

B.     The  Frontiers. 

471.  As  Augustus  found  them 397 

472.  As  Augustus  corrected  them 397 

473.  Later  additions :  Britain  .         .         .         .        '.         .         .        .  398 

474.  The  greatest  extent  —  under  Trajan  —  and  the  earliest  sur- 

renders   399 

475.  Frontier  walls   .        . 399 

rV.     Society  in  the  First  Two  Centuries. 
A.    Peace  and  Prosperity. 

476.  "  The  good  Roman  peace "       .......    400 

477.  Good  government,  even  by  bad  emperors         ....     401 

478.  Material  prosperity 401 

479.  Forms  of  industry .        .402 


XXX  ANALYTICAL   TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 


B.     The  World  becomes  JRoman. 

SECTION  PAGE 

480.  Politically,  by  extension  of  citizenship 403 

481.  Socially,  in  patriotism  and  aspiration 404 

482.  Consequent  diffusion  of  social  life 405 

C.     Education  in  the  First  Three  Centuries. 

483.  Univei-sities 406 

484.  Grammar  schools  and  lower  schools 406 

D.    Architecture. 

485.  Characteristics 408 

486.  The  Age  of  Augustus  in  architecture 409 

487.  Famous  buildings  and  types      .         .         .         .         .        .         .  409 

488.  The  Roman  basilica  and  early  Christian  architecture        .        .411 

E.     Literature. 

489.  Before  Cicero 418 

490.  The  Age  of  Cicero 413 

491.  The  Augustan  Age  and  the  first  century  a.d 414 

492.  The  second  century  a.d 414 

F.     Pagan  Morals  and  Religion. 

493.  The  dark  side  ;  the  court  and  the  mobs 415 

494.  Danger  of  exaggerating  the  evils :   the  brighter  side ;   Pliny, 

Aurelius,  the  middle  classes  .         .      ^ 416 

Special  evidence  of  improvement  in :  — 

495.  a.  improved  position  of  women 417 

496.  b.  charity 418 

497.  c.  kindness  to  animals  .         . 419 

498.  d.  mildor  slavery 419 

499.  e.  broader  humanity      . 420 

600.  /.  gentler  spirit  of  imperial  law 420 

601.  Scepticism  and  religion 420 

602.  Change  in  moral  standards 421 

G.     Extracts  to  illustrate  the  Higher  Pagan  Morality. 

503.  From  Marcus  Aurelius 421 

504.  From  Epictetus 422 

H.     Christianity. 

606.   Some  inner  sources  of  its  power 423 

506.    Its  debt  to  the  empire's  humane  tendencies  and  political  and 

social  unity 424 


ANALYTICAL  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS.  xxxi 

SECTION  PAGE 

507.  The  earlier  persecutions    .         .       ^. 424 

508.  Causes  of  persecution 426 

509.  Attitude  of  the  imperial  government 427 

510.  Summary  of  the  persecutions 428 

V.     The  General  Decline  in  the  Third  Century. 

511.  Renewal  of  barbarian  attacks 428 

512.  Political  disintegration  :  the  "  barrack  emperors "    .         .        .  429 

513.  Decline  in  population ;  the  plague     .         .         .         .         .         .  430 

514.  Decay  in  literature 431 

515.  The  decline  not  marked  until  after  Alexander  Severus  ;  and  at 

its  worst  through  the  middle  of  the  century  only  .         .         .  431 


CHAPTER   IIL— THE   EMPIRE   OF  THE   FOURTH 

CENTURY:    DIOCLETIAN  TO   THEODOSIUS, 

284-395  A.D. 

516-519.  I.     Table  of  Reigns  and  Events     .         ,         .     433 

II.     Restoration  and  Reforms. 

520.  Diocletian's  "partnership  emperors";  the  Caesars;  the  four 

prefectures 434 

521.  A  complex  hierarchy 436 

522.  Separation  of  civil  and    military  powers  in  the    provincial 

governors 4-36 

523.  Growth  of  a  bureaucracy 436 

524.  Despotism  avowed  ;  despotic  forms 437 

525.  General    result:    a  huge    complicated    machine    temporarily 

efficient 437 

526-527.    III.     Excursus  :    The   Nature   of  Bureaucratic   and 

Centralized  Government  ....     438 

IV.     The  Church  of  the  Fourth  Century. 
A.     The  Empire  becomes  Christian. 

528.  Constantine's  motives .     439 

529.  Christianity  tolerated  and  favored  after  314  a.d.  ;   Edict  of 

Milan 440 

530.  Established  after  390  a.d.  ;  persecutes  in  turn  ....  440 
631.  Outward  effects  of  the  conversion  of  the  empire  .  .  .  441 
532.    Importance  of  the  conversion's  coming  before  the  barbarian 

conquest 443 


XXxii  ANALYTICAL   TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 


B.     Organization  of  the  Church. 

SECTION  PAGE 

633.   Debt  to  the  empire  ;  growing  tendency  to  monarchic  form       .  443 

C.     The  Catholic  Doctrine. 

534.    Closer  definition  of  doctrine,  and  the  rise  of  heresies        .        .  444 

635.   Arianism:  Council  of  Nlcaea,  325  a.  d 444 

V.     Literature  and  Science. 

636-638.  A.     Table  of  Authors  and  Works      .        .        .445 

B.     Decline  in  Learning. 

539.  Hostile  attitude  of  the  church 446 

540.  A  few  illustrations  of  the  church's  attitude       ....  447 

541.  Active  persecution  of  pagan  learning 448 

642.   The  result .449 

VL     Society  in  the  Fourth  Century. 
A.     Introductory  Survey. 

543.  Growing  exhaustion  of  the  empire 449 

544.  The  causes  political  and  economic  rather  than  moral        .        .  450 

B.     The  Organization  of  Society. 

546.   Classes 450 

546.  a.  Senatorial  nobility 451 

547.  b.  Curial  nobility 451 

548.  c.  Artisans 452 

649.       d.  Peasantry :  coloni 462 

660.  The  approach  of  a  caste  system 454 

561.                                           C.     Taxation 454 

D.     Summary  of  the  Causes  of  Decline. 

552,    Economic  .         . 455 

563.   Political :  inherent  weakness  of  centralized  despotism      .        .  455 
654.   Infusion  of  barbarian  blood  and  customs:  a  reinvigorating 

but  disintegrating  force          . 456 


ANALYTICAL  TABLE   OF  CONTENTS.  xxxiii 


PART  VI.  — ROMANO-TEUTONIC  EUROPE. 
CHAPTER  I.  — THE   TEUTONS. 

SECTION  PAGB 

555.  Early  home  and  peoples 458 

556.  Stage  of  culture 468 

557.  Character 469 

558.  Religion 461 

659.   Political  organization 462 

560.  The  "  companions  " 463 

561.  The  charm  of  the  South ..463 


CHAPTER   IL— THE  INVASIONS,   376-565  A.D. 

I.     The  Teutons  break  over  the  Barriers. 

A.     Tlie  Danube. 

562.  West  Goths  admitted  into  the  empire  ;  Adrian ople,  378  a.d.    .     465 

563.  Alaric  in  Greece,  Illyria,  and  Italy  ;  sack  of  Rome,  410  a.d.    .    467 

564.  Visigothic  kingdom  in  Spain,  419  a.d 468 

B.     The  Bhine. 

565.  The  barrier  bursts,  406  a.d 468 

566.  Kingdom  of  the  Burgundians 469 

567.  The  Vandals  and  Suevi  in  Spain  ;  Vandal  kingdom  in  Africa  '.  469 

568.  Franks  and  Romans  in  North  Gaul 469 

IL     The  Huns. 

569.  Turanian  peoples 470 

570.  Chalons 470 

571.  Attila  in  Italy ;  Pope  Leo  ;  Venice 471 

III.     Italy  and  the  Eastern  Empire  :    from  Alaric  to 
THE  Lombards. 

572-573.    A.     Table  of  Emperors  to  the  Last  Western  Emperor: 

Theodosius  to  Bomulus  Augustulus,  395-476  A.D.        .     472 

6U.  B.     Odovaker 473 

C.     The  Ostro-Gothic  Kingdom. 

575.  The  Goths  before  entering  Italy  j  Theodoric     ....    474 

576.  Their  conquest  of  Italy 474 


XXXiv  ANALYTICAL  TABLE   OF  CONTENTS. 

SECTION  PAGE 

577.  "  Theodoric  the  Civilizer,"  493-626  a.d.  .....    476 

578.  Theodoric's  "  empire " 476 

579.  Elements  of  weakness :  Arianism 477 

D.     Bevival  of  the  Empire  at  Constantinople. 

580.  The  "  Greek  Empire  " 477 

581.  Slav  invasions 477 

582.  Justinian:    restoration  and  reconquests  of  Africa,   of  parts 

of  Spain,  and  of  Italy 478 

583.  The  Justinian  Code 478 

E.     The  Lombards  in  Italy. 

584.  Called  in  by  Narses 479 

585.  Final  break-up  of  Italian  unity  for  1300  years ;  Italy  divided 

between  Lombard  and  Greek 479 

IV.     The  Franks. 

586.  Preeminence  among  Teutonic  conquerors,  because  (a)  they 

expanded  rather  than  migrated,  and  (6)  adopted  Catholic 
rather  than  Arian  Christianity 480 

587.  Clovis  :  early  conquests  (Soissons  and  Strassburg)   .         .         .     480 

588.  Clovis'  conversion  ;  motives  and  political  results       ,         .         .     481 

589.  Later  conquests  of  Clovis  and  his  sons ;  the  Frankish  empire 

of  the  seventh  century 481 

590.  The  Frankish  state  under  the  later  Merovingians     .        .        .     482 

V.     Britain. 

591.  The  conquerors  and  their  early  kingdoms  ;  victory  exceedingly 

slow 483 

592.  Causes  for  the  delay 484 

593.  Result  of  the  slow  conquest :  England  a  Teutonic  state    .         .  484 

594.  Conversion  to  Christianity  ;  political  results     ....  484 

CHAPTER  in. —THE  STATE  OF  EUROPE,  600-800  A.D. 

595.  L     The  Dark  Ages         .        .         .        .486 


II.     The  Barbarians  and  the  Roman  Civilization. 

596.  Small  numbers  of  the  invaders  ;  weak  Roman  resistance  . 

597.  Small  amount  of  direct  destruction 

598.  Relation  between  the  conquerors  and  the  older  populations 

599.  Permanence  of  the  idea  of  the  Roman  Empire  . 

600.  The  Teutons  and  Christianity    .         .         . 

601.  Moral  preaching  in  the  Dark  Ages 


487 
487 
488 
489 
489 
490 


ANALYTICAL  TABLE   OF   CONTENTS.  XXXV 


IIL       MONASTICISM. 

SECTION  PAGE 

602.  Eastern  hermits  and  western  monks 490 

603.  Growth  of  western  monasticism 491 

604.  The  three  vows  and  the  monastic  life 492 

605.  Relation  of  the  monks  to  the  older  clergy          ....  492 

IV.     Development  of  Teutonic  Law. 

606.  Codes 492 

607.  Personality  of  law 493 

608.  Methods  of  trial  :  compurgation,  ordeal,  battle         .        .         .  493 

609.  Money  atonement  for  crime  ;  wer-geld 494 

V.     Development  of  Teutonic  Political  Institutions. 

610.  Kingship  becomes  hereditary  and  more  absolute       .         .         .  494 

611.  Growth  of  a  new  territorial  nobility ;  the  germ  of  the  later 

feudal  system 494 

612.  Popular  assemblies  lose  importance 495 

VI.     Summary  of  Contributions  to  the  Later  European 
Civilization. 

613.  Roman 496 

614.  Teutonic 496 

615.  Influence  of  the  mixture .  496 


CHAPTER  IV.— POLITICAL  EUROPE,   600-800  A.D. 
I.     The  Franks  to  Charles  Martel. 

616.  Rivalry  of  Austrasia  and  Neustria 497 

617.  "Do-nothing"  kings  and  mayors  of  the  palace         .         .         .     497 

618.  Pippin  of  Heristal :  Testry  ;  supremacy  of  Austrasia  and  re- 

founding  of  the  Prankish  state 498 

619.  Charles  Martel :  restoration  of  authority  over  outlying  prov- 

inces in  time  to  meet  the  Mohammedan  onset       .        .         .     498 

r  II.     The  Mohammedan  Peril. 

620.  Arabia  before  Mohammed 499 

621.  Mohammed  to  the  Hegira,  622  a.d 500 

622.  From  the  Hegira  to  Mohammed's  death,  632  a.d.      .        .         .  500 

623.  The  seventy  years  of  conquest 502 

624.  Attack  upon  Europe  in  the  East:  repulses  at  Constantinople 

in  678  and  717  A.D. 602 


XXXVl  ANALYTICAL  TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 

SECTION  PASB 

625.  Attack  in  the  West :  repulse  at  Tours,  732  a.d.        .        .        .503 

626.  The  splitting  of  the  Mohammedan  state  j  later  Mohammedan- 

ism ;  elements  of  degeneracy 504 

III.    The  Papacy. 
A.     Bise  to  Ecclesiastical  Headship. 

627.  Claim :  doctrine  of  the  Petrine  supremacy        ....     605 

628.  Six  factors  that  helped  to  support  the  claim  in  the  West  .        ,     506 

629.  Eastern  rivalry  removed  by  the  Mohammedan  conquest  and 

by  the  Great  Schism 607 

B.     The  Pope  becomes  a  Temporal  Sovereign. 

630.  Indefinite  authority  as  a  civil  officer  of  the  distant  Greek 

emperor 608 

631.  This  virtual  independence  avowed  by  open  rebellion  after  the 

image-breaking  quarrel 608 

632.  Recognition  and  protection  by  the  Franks        ....     609 

IV.     The  Franks  and  the  Papacy  :    from  Charles  the 
Hammer  to  Charles  the  Great. 

633.  The  new  Carolingian  dynasty  ;  papal  sanction  ....     510 

634.  Pippin  saves  and   enlarges  the  papal  state:    "donation  of 

Pippin" 510 

635.  Different  views  as  to  the  nature  of  the  papal  authority ;  the 

forged  "  donation  of  Constantine  " 511 


CHAPTER  v.— THE  EMPIRE  OF  CHARLEMAGNE. 
I.     Expansion  of  Civilization. 

636.  Importance  and  character  of  Charles'  wars       ....  613 

637.  Winning  of  the  heathen  Saxon  lands  to  the  Elbe      .        .        .  514 

638.  Additions  in  Spain,  Italy,  and  Bavaria 516 

639.  Result :  a  union  of  the  Teutonic  peoples  of  the  continent         .  616 

640.  Defensive  wars  against  Slavs  and  Avars :  buffer  states  on  the 

East 516 

II.     Revival  of  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  West. 

641.  Reasons  and  pretexts 516 

642.  P^lection  and  coronation  by  Pope  Leo,  800  a.d.         .        .        .  617 

643.  Theory  of  the  empire 617 

644.  Distinctive  character  of  the  Western  Empire    .        .        .        .518 


ANALYTICAL  TABLE   OF   CONTENTS.  XXXvii 


in.     Social  and  Political  Organization. 

SECTION  PAGE 

645.  Political :  counts,  missi  dominici,  Mayfields     ....     619 

646.  Relation  of  Charlemagne  to  the  Church 520 

647.  Advancement  of  learning 520 

IV.     Summary. 

648.  The  four  great  powers  in  800  a. d 520 

649.  The  place  of  Charlemagne  in  history 521 

Each  chapter  as  a  rule  gives  at  the  close  a  bibliography  and  suggestions 
for  review.  Such  exercises  and  references  are  also  given  oftentimes  at 
the  close  of  the  subdivisions  of  chapters. 


APPENDIX. 

I.     Table  of  Events  and  Dates 523 

II.     Classified   Bibliography,   with   Dates,    Publishers,    and 

Prices 532 

INDEX  AND  PRONOUNCING  VOCABULARY.    ...  643 


f 

MAPS  AND  PLANS. 


PAGB 

1.  First  Homes  of  Civilization.     Full  page,  colored        .       facing  12 

2.  Ancient  Egypt 16 

3.  Syria 62 

4.  Lydia,  Media,  Egypt,  and  Babylonia.     (The  World  just  before 

the  Rise  of  Persia.)     Full  page,  colored  .         .         .       facing  66 

5.  The  Persian  Empire  and  Greece.     Full  page,  colored        facing  68 

6.  Greece  and  Adjoining  Coasts.     (General  Reference.)     Double 

page,  colored following  76 

7.  Greater  Hellas.     Double  page,  colored       .        .        .  following  102 

8.  Attica 147 

9.  Athens  and  Vicinity 156 

10.  Athenian  Empire  at  its  Greatest  Extent.      Full  page,  colored 

facing  165 

11.  Plan  of  Athens 175 

12.  Plan  of  the  Acropolis.     Full  page 177 

13.  Greece  at  the  Beginning  of  the  Peloponnesian  War.     Full  page, 

colored facing  192 

14.  Plan  of  the  Battle  of  Leuclra 207 

16.   Greece  under  Theban  Leadership.     Full  page,  colored      facing  208 

16.  The  Growth  of  Macedonia 211 

17.  Campaigns  and  Empire  of  Alexander  the  Great.     Full  page, 

colored facing  217 

18.  Ancient  Italy.    (General  Reference.)    Full  page,  colored /acmgr  249 

19.  Peoples  of  Italy 253 

20.  Rome  under  the  Kings 261 

21.  Rome  and  Vicinity 292 

22.  Italy  about  200  b.c.  :  Roads  and  Colonies 300 

23.  Plan  of  a  Roman  Camp 311 

24.  The  Mediterranean  Lands  at  the  Beginning  of  the  Second  Punic 

War    (The    Five    Great  Powers).      Double  page,    colored 

following  312 

25.  Roman  Dominions  and  Dependencies  in  146  b.c.        .        .        .  335 

26.  The  Roman  Empire  at  its  Greatest  Extent  (showing  also  Stages 

in  Growth).     Double  page,  colored          .        .        .  following  398 

Rome  under  the  Empire 407 

xxxviii 


MAPS  AND  PLANS.  XXxix 

PAGB 

28.  The  Roman  Empire  divided  into  Praefectures  and  Dioceses. 

Double  page,  colored following    434 

29.  The  Rhine-Danube  Frontier  before  the  Great  Migrations.     Full 

page 466 

30.  The  Migrations.     Double  page,  colored      .         .        .  following    468 

31.  Europe  in   the   Reign  of  Theodoric  (500  a.d.).      Full  page, 

colored facing    476 

32.  Europe  at  the  Death  of  Justinian  (565  a.d.)    Full  page,  colored 

facing    478 

33.  Germanic  Kingdoms  on  Roman  Soil  at  the  Close  of  the  Sixth 

Century.    Double  page,  colored       ....  following    480 

34.  Kingdom  of  the  Merovingians.     Full  page,  colored    .        facing    497 

35.  Europe  at  the  End  of  the  Seventh  Century.     Full  page,  colored 

facing    510 
86.  Europe  in  the  Time  of  Charles  the  Great.     Double  page,  colored  JL. 

following    618     ' 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Julius  Caesax.     The  Naples  bust Frontispiece 

PAGE 

1.  Three  Stages  in  Fire-making 2 

2.  Portion  of  the  Rosetta  Stone,  containing  the  hieroglyphics  first 

deciphered 11 

3.  Sculptured  Head  of  Thiitmosis  III.  of  the  eighteenth  Egyptian 

dynasty 19 

4.  Name  of  Psametichus  in  hieroglyphics 21 

5.  Name  of  Neco  in  hieroglyphics -21 

6.  Photograph  of  a  Modem  Egyptian  Woman  sitting  by  a  Sculp- 

tured Head  of  an   Ancient  King  —  to  show   similarity   of 

features 23 

7.  Shoemakers.     Egyptian  relief  from  the  monuments  ...  25 

8.  Levying  the  Tax.     Egyptian  relief  from  the  monuments   .        .  26 

9.  Sphinx  and  Pyramid 27 

10.  Obelisk  and  Temple  of  the  Sun  at  Karnak 28 

11.  Aisle  in  the  Ruins  at  Karnak 29 

12.  A  Capital  from  Karnak .30 

13.  Egyptian  Numerals     .         .         .         .         .         .         .        .  •      .  31 

14.  Sculptured  Egyptian   Funeral    Couch,  representing  the   soul 

crouching  by  the  mummy 33 

15.  Rock-hewn  Colossi  of  Rameses  II 34 

16.  Fragment  of  Assyrian  "  Deluge  Tablet "    .         .         .         .         .  43 

17.  Name  of  Nebuchadnezzar  in  Cuneiform  Characters    ...  46 

18.  Assyrian   Tablet,   showing  older  hieroglyphics  and  the  later 

cuneiform  equivalents 47 

19.  An  Assyrian  "  Book."     An  octagon  Assyrian  brick,  now  in  the 

British  Museum  ;  after  Sayce 49 

20.  Assyrian  Contract  Tablet  in  Duplicate 51 

21.  Colossal  Man-beast  in  Alabaster,  from  the  palace  of  Sargon 

(now  in  the  Louvre)        .         . 63 

22.  Parts  of  Alphabets .        .         .68 

23.  Bronze  Pitcher  from  Mycenae 82 

24.  Bronze  Dagger  from  Mycenae,  inlaid  with  gold          ...  83 
26.   The  Gate  of  the  Lions  at  Mycenae 86 

xl 


ILLUSTRATIONS.  xli 


PAGE 

26.  The  Vaphio  Cups 88 

27.  The  Scroll  from  the  Vaphio  Cups 89 

28.  Greek  Hoplite 115 

29.  Bay  of  Salamis 148 

30.  Pericles.     A  portrait  bust,  now  in  the  Vatican  ....  173 

31.  The  Parthenon  To-day,  from  the  Northwest       .        .        .         .  178 

32.  Figures  from  the  Parthenon  Frieze 178 

33.  The  Hermes  of  Praxiteles 179 

34.  The  Acropolis,  as  restored  by  Rehlender 180 

35.  The  Acropolis  To-day,  from  the  west 181 

36.  Aeschylus  and  Euripides.     Portrait  busts  now  in  the  Capitoline 

Museum 182 

37.  Sophocles.     A  portrait  statue  now  in  the  Lateran      .        ,         .  183 

38.  Theater  of  Dionysus  at  Athens,  Present  Condition     .        .         ,  184 

39.  Theater  of  Dionysus  at  Athens  restored 185 

40.  Thucydides.     Capitoline  Museum 185 

41.  The  Wrestlers     .         , 188 

42.  The  Disk  Thrower.     After  Myron.     Now  in  the  Vatican  .         „  189 

43.  Philip  II.     From  a  gold  medallion 210 

44.  Alexander:    Head,  and  Alexander  in  a  Lion-hunt.     The  two 

sides  of  a  gold  medallion  of  Tarsus 215 

45.  Head  of  Alexander  Rondanini     .         .         ,         .        .         .         .216 

46.  Alexander  as  Apollo.     Now  in  the  Capitoline     .         .        .        ,  220 

47.  The  Dying  Gaul 227 

48.  Venus  of  Melos.     A  statue  now  in  the  Louvre   ....  231 

49.  Laocoon.     Now  in  the  Vatican 232 

50.  The  World  according  to  Eratosthenes 235 

51.  Remains  of  an  Etruscan  Arch  at  Volaterrae       ....  252 

52.  The  Cloaca  Maxima 262 

53.  Remains  of  the  Wall  of  Servius 263 

54.  Coin  struck  by  Pyrrhus  in  Sicily 296 

55.  The  Appian  Way  To-day,  with  Ruins  of  the  Claudian  Aqueduct  303 

56.  Carthaginian  Coin  struck  in  Sicily       , 314 

57.  Coin  of  Hiero  II.  of  Syracuse 315 

58.  Decree  of  L.  Aemilius  Paulus,  Praetor  of  Spain,  regulating  the 

position  of  a  client-community         .         .         .         .        .        .  329 

59.  Coin  of  Sulla  struck  in  Athens 862 

60.  Pompeius.     A  bust  in  the  Spada  Palace 865 

61.  Cicero.     The  Vatican-  bust 867 

62.  Julius  Caesar.     The  British  Museum  bust 368 

63.  Marcus  Brutus.     A  bust  in  the  Capitoline  Museum    .        .         .  380 

64.  Octavius  Caesar  as  a  Boy.     A  bust  now  in  the  Vatican      .         .  383 

65.  Augustus.     The  Vatican  statue 385 

66.  A  German  Bodyguard.     A  detail  from  the  column  of  Marcus 

Aurelius  ....•...*••  396 


xlii  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGB 

67.  Detail  from  Trajan's  Column  :  Trajan  sacrificing  at  the  Bridge 

over  the  Danube 399 

68.  A  Section  of  the  Pantheon  as  at  Present 408 

69.  The  Coliseum  To-day 409 

70.  Arch  of  Constantine  To-day 410 

71.  Trajan's  Column  To-day 411 

72.  Plan  of  a  Basilica        *. 412 

73.  Interior  of  Trajan's  Basiilica  as  restored  by  Canina    .         .         .  412 

74.  Marcus  Aurelius  Antoninus.     A  bust  now  in  the  Louvre   .         .  417 

75.  Paustina,  the  wife  of  Marcus  Aurelius.     A  bust  now  in  the 

Louvre 418 

76.  Hall  of  the  Baths  of  Diocletian.     Now  the  Church  of  St.  Mary 

of  the  Angels 442 

77.  A  Dolmen  of  the  Ancient  Germans 459 

78.  Battle-ax  and  Mace  :  arms  of  Teutonic  chieftains  in  an  early 

period 460 

79.  Church   of  San    Vitale  at  Ravenna  (time  of  Theodoric  the 

Great) 476 

80.  Sepulcher  of  Theodoric  at  Ravenna 476 

81.  Throne  of  Charlemagne  at  Aachen 516 


ANCIENT   HISTORY. 


INTRODUCTION. 

I.     WHAT   HISTORY  SHALL   WE   STUDY? 

The  whole  series  of  human  generations  should  he  regarded  as  one  man^ 
ever  living  and  ever  learning.  — Pascal. 

Through  the  ages  one  increasing  puriiose  runs, 
And  the  thoughts  of  men  are  widened  with  the  process  of  the  suns. 

—  Tennyson. 

1.  Prehistoric  Life  excluded.  —  The  first  steps  toward  civiliza- 
tion must  have  been  uncertain  and  slow.  No  doubt  these 
beginnings  took  long  periods  of  time,  but  we  can  know  little 
about  them,  for  no  people  leaves  records  that  the  historian  can 
use  until  it  has  advanced  a  long  way  from  primitive  savagery. 
To  be  sure,  there  are  tribes  still  in  primitive  stages ;  and,  by 
comparing  them  with  what  can  be  gleaned  from  traditions, 
customs,  words,  and  early  records  of  our  own  civilization, 
scholars  have  learned  something  of  how  our  forefathers  must 
have  lived  before  Homer  and  before  the  oldest  inscriptions 
upon  Egyptian  stone.  But  this  study  of  early  cultures,  fas- 
cinating though  it  be,  is  not  properly  history.  History  is 
based  always  upon  records,  and  these  older  stages  in  human 
life  we  call  prehistoric. 

Still,  it  is  well  for  us  to  remember  that  our  imposing  and 
varied  civilization  rests  upon  this  unrecorded  work  of  prehis- 
toric man  through  slow,  uncounted  ages.  The  development  of 
language;  the  invention  of  the  bow,  of  making  fire,  of  pottery 


INTRODUCTION. 


[§2 


to  stand  the  fire ;  the  domestication  of  the  dog  and  cow ;  the 
learning  to  live  together,  not  in  droves,  but  in  families  and 
tribes;  the  rude  beginnings  of  agriculture;  the  smelting  of 
metals  to  replace  stone  tools ;  —  these  are  steps  any  of  which 
are  infinitely  more  important  than  the  discovery  of  electricity 
or  the  growth  of  federal  government:  but  all  this,  and  much 


Three  Stages  in  Fire-making. 


more,  had  become  the  common  property  of  many  races  before 
history  began  anywhere.^ 

2.  Some  Historic  Races  excluded.  —  Even  when  limited  so  in 
time,  the  history  of  all  the  civilizations  of  the  world  is  too  vast 
and  complex  for  our  study.  We  must  narrow  the  field.  Now, 
we  care  chiefly,  to ^know,  of  .tjiose  peoples  whose  life  has  borne 


§3]  WHAT   HISTORY   SHALL   WE   STUDY?  3 

fruit  for  ours.  We  study  that  part  of  the  recorded  past  which 
explains  our  present.  This  principle  gi^€S  oneness  to  history, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  simplifies  it  by  shutting  out  vast  areas. 
In  this  hemisphere  we  can  neglect  the  Aztec  and  Inca  civiliza- 
tions ;  likewise  in  the  Old  World  we  can  omit  the  isolated  Hin- 
doos and  Chinese,  though,  these  two  pjj^es  were  among  the 
first  to  emerge  from  barbarism  and  t^^^h.  they  still  count 
half  the  population  of  the  globe.^  Noi^^B  w^oncerned,  until 
modern  times  at  least,  wi*h  many  peo^B  1^  the  Kussians, 
who  have  been  drawn  otly  recently  ^H|tBP^  current  of  our 
development.  "* 

3.  The  Field  selected  and  the  Periods.  ^-  Thus  we  bound  our 
study  in  space  as  well  as  ia-|time.  Until  long  after  Columbus, 
our  interest  centers  in  Eurom  and  mostly  in  Western  Europe. 
The  life  of  man  there,  throujt  all  histofi&  tim^  is  the  soil  out 
of  which  grows  our  life  to-d^.  And  when  ^b  look  for  the 
early  peoples  who  have  shaped  this  European  li|e,  we  see  three 
—  Greeks,  Eomans,  and  Teutons  —  towering  above  all  others.^ 
We  shall  group  our  study  around  these  three  life-directing 
centers.  But  the  civilization  of  the  Greeks;  and  Komans 
was  not  wholly  original.  It  was  modified  by  certain  older 
civilizations  outside  Europe,  near  the  eastern  shores  of  the 
Mediterranean ;  and  the  history  of  these  Oriental  states  makes 
the  dim  ante-room  through  which  we  pass  to  European  history. 


1  The  Hindoo  Buddha  (sixth  century  B.C.)  is  perhaps  second  only  to  Christ 
in  greatness  and  purity  among  the  founders  of  religions,  and  the  Chinese  Con- 
fucius of  the  same  century  must  rank  among  the  great  moral  teachers  of  the 
world ;  but  our  Western  thought  has  not  been  influenced  by  either  of  them  to 
any  considerable  degree.  It  now  seems  probable  that  these  countries  will 
aifect  our  civilization  in  the  future,  but  in  the  past  tl^e^njy  important  con- 
tribution which  we  can  trace  to  them,  positively,  is  thMBkrabic  "  notation 
from  the  Hindoos.  *  X 

2  The  inhabitants  of  ancient  France,  Spain,  Britain,  ani  of  southern  and 
eastern  Germany  are  not  included.  It  is  true  that  they  p6nstituted  a  large 
part  of  European  life,  but  that  life  was  given  its  peculiar  chiatacteristics  largely 
by  the  three  elements  named.  The  reason  that  the  Jews  are  not  mentioned, 
despite  their  great  influence,  will  appear  in  later  chapters. 


4  INTRODUCTION.  [§  3 

Now  we  can  answer  the  question  that  heads  this  chapter. 
As  the  panorama  unfolds,  we  see  civilizations,  already  old,  in 
the  fertile  river-valleys  of  Egypt  and  of  Western  Asia.  Their 
story  is  Oriental  History.  It  covered  thousands  of  years,  but 
we  view  only  fragments  of  it,  and  this  by  way  of  introduction 
to  European  history. 

About  600  B.C.  th^|roper  history  of  our  civilization  begins, 
in  the  far  southeast  oi  Europe,  when  the  Greeks  take  over  the 
work  and  shift  the  scene  west  in  patches  along  the  Mediter- 
ranean. They  make  marvelous  advance  in  art,  literature,  phi- 
losophy, and  in  some  sciences.  Their  chief  contributions  are 
intellectual ;  but  after  about  three  hundred  years,  under  Alex- 
ander the  Great,  they  suddenly  conquer  the  East  and  form  a 
Graeco-Oriental  world.  This  mingling  of  East  and  West  gives 
the  first  basis  for  modern  civilization. 

Two  centuries  later,  political  leadership  has  passed  to  the 
next  peninsula  west.  There  the  Romans  supplement  the 
Greek  work  by  peculiar  contributions  in  law  and  government, 
gathering  together,  too,  whatever  has  been  preserved  from  the 
older  civilizations.  By  conquest,  the  Romans  unite  under  one 
sway  all  the  historic  peoples  of  the  East,  and  extend  civilization 
over  the  barbarians  of  the  West,  so  that  at  the  birth  of  Christ 
they  have  organized  the  fringe  of  the  three  continents  border- 
ing the  Mediterranean  into  one  fairly  uniform  Graeco-Roman 
society.  This  is  the  second  basis  for  modern  civilization.  The 
Eastern  world,  largely  Greek,  was  to  be  lost  again  for  a  time, 
later  on,  but  the  development  of  the  West  was  to  be  continuous 
to  the  present  day.  This  Roman  Empire  is  the  central  "lake 
in  which  all  the  streams  of  ancient  history  lose  themselves, 
and  which  all  the  streams  of  modern  history  flow  out  of." 
The  Graeco-Oriental  world  of  Alexander,  upon  the  conqueror's 
death,  broke  up  politically  into  fragments,  but  the  Roman 
dominion  maintains  its  political  unity  for  five  centuries.  The 
combined  period  of  Greek  and  Roman  history,  from  600  b.c. 
to  400  A.D.,  is  Classical  History. 

Toward  the  close  of  this  thousand   years  the  Romanized 


§4]  WHAT   HISTORY   SHALL   WE   STUDY?  5 

races  seem  exhausted.  Then,  in  Western  Europe,  Teutonic 
barbarians  break  in,  to  reinvigorate  the  classical  world.  They 
destroy  much  at  first ;  but  by  what  is  left  they  slowly  educate 
themselves  up  to  the  level  of  the  older  culture,  and  so  prepare 
to  go  beyond  it.  This  Romano-Teutonic  Europe  is  the  third 
terrace  on  which  our  civilization  rests.  What  the  Teutons  did 
in  Western,  or  Eoman,  Europe,  the  Slav  barbarians  did,  not 
quite  so  successfully,  in  Eastern,  or  Greek,  Europe,  but  their 
work  does  not  affect  our  development  until  a  later  period. 
The  process  of  Teutonic  education  is  a  long  one,  really  lasting 
another  thousand  years;  but  the  fusion  of  Teutonic  and 
Romanized  elements  is  well  under  way  by  the  year  800  a.d., 
and  we  take  this  convenient  date  to  mark  the  close  of  ancient 
history.  The  final  four  centuries,  from  400  to  800  a.d.,  are 
the  period  of  the  Teutoriic  Infusion.  This  is  the  last  division 
of  ancient  history,  and  it  forms  also  a  transition  to  modern 
history. 

4.  The  Two  Great  Divisions  of  History.  —  It  should  be  noted 
that  Ancient  History  is  relatively  simple.  The  peoples  to  be 
studied  are  few,  and  they  appear,  not  all  at  once,  but  one  at 
a  time ;  they  themselves  differ  in  character  widely,  and  their 
contributions  are  distinct  in  kind.  The  stage,  too,  is  compact: 
it  shifts  and  expands  from  time  to  time,  but  the  ancient  world 
never  gets  far  from  the  Mediterranean,  which  is  its  great  high- 
road and  chief  bond  of  union.  The  theme  of  this  division  of 
history  is  the  early  education  and  bringing  together  of  the 
various  peoples  who  were  then  to  produce  our  modern  world. 

The  later  story  of  the  multiform  Teutonic- Roman  civilization 
so  produced  —  and,  in  a  minor  degree,  of  the  Slavic-Greek 
civilization  of  Eastern  Europe  —  is  Modem  History.  It  sur- 
veys the  rise  of  the  many  contemporaneous  nations  of  Europe 
after  800  a.d.,  the  varied  forms  of  their  progress  to  about 
1500  A.D.,  and,  since  then,  their  marvelous  expansion  into  new 
continents,  with  the  consequent  interaction  and  development. 
From  century  to  century  this  story  has  grown  more  and  more 


6  INTRODUCTION.  [§  5 

complex.  The  actors  are  numerous  and  the  stage  is  vast.  In 
our  own  day  it  is  rapidly  widening  as  never  before,  and  it 
promises  in  the  near  future  to  take  in  the  whole  globe  and  all 
branches  of  the  human  race.^ 

5.  The  Subject  of  this  Volume.  —  This  volume  deals  with  the 
first  of  these  two  great  divisions.  It  omits  prehistoric  times 
and  those  historic  peoples  who  have  not  modified  our  history, 
and  it  does  not  enter  upon  the  complex  modern  period.  It 
prepares  for  modern  history  by  treating  ancient  history  under 
the  following  heads  :  — 

Part  I.  Early  Oriental  civilization  contributory  to  Euro- 
pean development  (Egyptian,  Babylonian,  Assyrian,  Phoeni- 
cian, Jewish,  Persian). 

Part  II.   Greek  history,  to  338  b.c. 

Part  III.   Expansion  of  Hellenism  (Graeco-Oriental  world). 

Part  IV.   History  of  Rome,  to  the  Empire. 

Part  V.   The  Roman  Empire  (Graeco-Roman  world). 

Part  VI.  The  Teutonic  infusion,  and  the  consequent  confu- 
sion and  fusion,  to  800  a.d.  (Romano-Teutonic  Europe). 

II.     "RACE"    IN   HISTORY. 

6.  The  Aryan  Fiction.  —  Only  a  few  years  ago  an  ancient 
history  must  have  begun  with  a  rigid  classification  of  men  into 
related  races.  Invariably,  too,  there  followed  a  eulogy  upon 
the  "  tall,  fair-haired,  blue-eyed  Aryans,"  whose  subdivisions 
(Celts,  Greeks,  Latins,  Germans,  Slavs),  it  was  taught,  had 
marched  in  prehistoric  times  in  successive  migrations  from 

1  Of  course  history  is  really  one  continuous  drama,  and  this  unity  is  more 
important  than  the  paragraphing  into  acts  and  scenes.  All  divisions  are  more 
or  less  arbitrary,  and  certainly  the  old  triple  division  —  ancient,  medieval, 
modern  —  has  lost  its  sanctity.  Some  writers  begin  medieval  history  four 
hundred  years  later  than  others,  while  there  is  a  two-hundred-year  variation 
in  the  dates  for  its  close.  Plainly,  the  Middle  Age  is  an  uncertain  one;  and 
there  is  a  manifest  advantage  in  ignoring  it  and  in  making  only  two  parts  of 
history  —  one  to  include  the  bringing  together  of  the  chief  historic  elements, 
the  other  to  treat  their  subsequent  workings. 


§6]  "RACE"   IN   HISTORY.  T 

an  original  Asiatic  home,  to  exterminate  the  smaller,  darker, 
non-Aryan  aborigines  of  Europe  or  to  impose  a  higher  culture 
upon  them.  To-day  this  old  classification  has  broken  down 
utterly ;  we  do  not  know  anything  a,bout  an  Aryan  race,  and  the 
various  "subdivisions"  named  above  are  probably  not  related 
in  any  such  way  as  was  formerly  thought.  The  old  doctrine 
was  based  upon  similarity  in  languages ;  but,  with  the  rise  of 
new  sciences,  scholars  have  discovered  that  language  is  not  a 
satisfactory  test  of  race  relationship.  To  say  nothing  of  unre- 
lated peoples  who,  in  historical  times,  have  come  to  speak 
closely  related  languages,  as  the  Belgians  and  modern  Peru- 
vians have  done,  it  is  seen  that  it  is  easier  for  a  people  to  adopt 
a  new  language,  or  even  to  modify  its  complexion,  than  to 
change  the  shape  of  its  skull.^ 

In  the  present  lack  of  satisfactory  knowledge  upon  the  sub- 
ject, a  book  of  this  kind  ought  not  to  touch  the  race  question 
at  all,  except  for  one  reason :  the  student  will  meet  mislead- 
ing statements  of  the  exploded  theory  in  all  but  the  latest 
books. ^      This   makes   it   needful  to  utter   emphatic   caution 

1  It  is  true,  Celts,  Germans,  Greeks,  Latins,  Slavs,  and  also  Persians  and 
Hindoos,  did  speak  languages  closely  related.  We  call  the  languages  Aryan. 
The  relation  between  the  languages  points  to  some  prehistoric  connection 
between  the  various  peoples  —  just  as  there  is  an  indirect  connection  between 
the  Belgians  and  Peruvians,  through  Romans  and  Spaniards.  But  the  amount 
of  blood  common  to  Peruvians  and  Belgians  is  infinitesimal;  and  just  so,  in 
the  light  of  new  sciences,  we  are  sure  that  this  ancifent  connection  between 
Celt  and  Hindoo  did  not  amount  to  race-relationship. 

For  criticism  of  the  older  idea,  see  Taylor's  Aryan  Race,  33  and  204,  and 
Ripley's  Races  of  Europe,  454-456.  Sergi's  Mediterranean  Race  (1901  a.d.) 
and  Hoernes's  Primitive  Man  contain  the  results  of  the  newer  scholarship  in 
popular  form.  Robertson's  Saxon  and  Celt  gives  a  spicy  discussion  on  race 
origins  (note  especially  pp.  29-32).  In  The  American  Historical  Review, 
III.  703,  Professor  Ripley  says,  "  Aryan  is  a  term  appertaining  to  a  family 
of  languages,  possibly  to  a  group  of  cultures,  but  absolutely  worthless  as 
indicating  any  racial  type.''  So  Oppert,  "  There  are  Indo-European  (Aryan) 
languages,  but  no  Indo-European  race."  So,  too,  recently.  Max  Miiller, 
who  forty  years  ago  was  foremost  in  propagating  the  idea  of  an  Aryan  race. 

2  Students  in  every  science  should  form  the  habit  of  noting  the  dates  of  the 
books  they  use.  Excellent  works,  still  indispensable  in  many  respects,  are 
soon  "  out  of  date  "  in  other  matters. 


8  INTRODUCTION.  [§  7 

against  the  old  view ;  and,  to  back  up  the  caution,  it  is  worth 
while  to  present  briefly  the  little  that  is  now  agreed  upon, 
along  with  some  strong  probabilities. 

7.  The  Three  Great  Races.  —  The  Mongolians,  in  farther  Asia 
beyond  the  Himalayas,  and  the  Negroes,  in  Africa  south  of  the 
Sahara,  seem  true  "  races."  Each  is  uniform  in  type.  Neither 
has  produced  a  civilization,  except  as  the  Chinese  have  done 
so.  Some  scientists  look  upon  the  Mongolians  and  Negroes 
as  "  primary  "  races,  and  think  that  they  may  be  of  different 
origin.  Intermediate  between  them,  in  physical  characteris- 
tics as  well  as  in  geographical  location,  there  has  been  a  third 
group,  a  medley  of  white  peoples,  from  whom  have  come  all 
our  historic  nations.  These  Whites  are  less  uniform  in  physi- 
cal character,  and  we  do  not  know  whether  or  not  they  are  a 
"  race  "  proper.  There  is  some  tendency  to  regard  them  as  a 
group  of  "  secondary "  races  derived  from  the  two  primary 
ones,  perhaps  in  a  variety  of  ways. 

8.  Some  of  the  White  Races.  —  One  important  West-Asiatic 
group  of  whites  are  usually  called  Semites,  because  they  have 
spoken  so-called  Semitic  languages,  although  it  seems  probable 
that  they  are  not  all  of  the  same  stock.  To  this  group  belong 
all  the  Asiatic  peoples  with  whom  we  have  most  concern,  ex- 
cept the  Persians  and  some  inhabitants  of  Asia  Minor. 

Another  "  white "  race  is  found  in  North  Africa  and  in 
Southern  Europe,  and  possibly  in  part  of  Asia  Minor.  It  is 
commonly  known  as  the  Mediterranean  race.  The  African 
branch  is  called  Berber ;  the  European,  Iberian. 

The  white  races  of  Europe  need  a  more  detailed  statement. 
There  are  at  least  three  important  and  strongly  marked  groups : 
in  the  south,  this  Iberian  branch  of  the  Mediterranean  race ; 
in  the  north,  a  Teutonic  race ;  between  them,  a  so-called  Alpine 
race.  The  Iberians  were  short,  brunette,  and  "long-headed" 
(the  diameter  of  the  skull  from  the  forehead  to  the  back  of  the 
head  being  at  least  one-third  longer  than  the  diameter  from 
temple  to  temple).     The  Teutons  were  long-headed  also,  but 


§10]  "RACE"  IN   HISTORY.  9 

tall  and  blond.  The  Alpine  race  were  fair  and  broad-headed 
(the  diameter  from  temple  to  temple  being  over  five-sixths  the 
other  diameter). 

9.  European  Nations  and  these  Races.  —  The  Alpine,  or  Cen- 
tral European  race,  seems  to  have  come  in  from  Asia  at  a  late 
prehistoric  time,  thrusting  a  dividing  wedge  between  the  two 
long-headed  peoples.  At  one  time  it  was  spread  widely  over 
Europe,  and  it  survives  in  south  Germany,  central  France  and 
Brittany,  perhaps  in  Holland,  and  probably  in  the  "  Slavs  "  of 
Eastern  Europe. 

The  Teutons  include,  for  the  most  part,  the  modern  Scan- 
dinavians, the  North  Germans,  and  the  people  of  eastern  Eng- 
land and  of  northeastern  France.  For  some  centuries  after 
400  A.D.  they  were  the  ruling  class  over  most  of  Southern 
Europe,  but  they  were  finally  absorbed  there  in  the  larger 
native   populations. 

To  the  Iberians  belong  (beside  the  African  branch  of  the 
same  race)  the  Greeks  and  Latins,  the  ancient  and  modern 
inhabitants  of  Spain  and  southern  France,  and  the  ancient 
inhabitants  of  the  British  Isles  and  the  modern  inhabitants 
of  a  large  part  of  them.  They  included,  therefore,  all  the 
historic  peoples  of  Europe  until  the  Teutons  broke  into  the 
Eoman  Empire.  They  were  probably  aborigines,  and  their 
culture  is  believed  to  have  been  essentially  indigenous  up  to 
the  point  at  which  our  history  will  take  it  up. 

10.  Conclusion.  —  All  these  peoples  have  long  since  become 
more  or  less  mixed,  so  that  scientists  find  it  almost  impossible 
to  secure  a  single  "pure  type."  This  classification,  moreover, 
does  not  attempt  to  be  exhaustive :  even  for  Europe,  it  leaves 
many  "  fragments  of  forgotten  peoples  "  unaccounted  for.  The 
statements,  too,  it  must  be  emphasized,  are  in  part  hypotheses ; 
they  are  of  value  because  they  give  us  a  tolerable  framework 
into  which  to  fit  our  facts,  until  perhaps  a  better  framework 
replaces  it,  as  this  has  replaced  the  "  Aryan  "  hypothesis. 

Probably  there  is  such  a  thing  as  race  character.     We  need 


10  INTRODUCTION.  [§  10 

not  deny  race  as  a  factor  in  historical  development,  but  we 
must  be  cautious  in  appealing  to  it  as  an  explanation.  We 
never  know  how  much  is  race  and  how  much  is  something  else ; 
and  we  may  be  very  sure  that  much  of  what  is  lightly  called 
race-character  is  the  result  of  recent  training  or  merely  the 
mark  of  a  certain  stage  of  culture. 


For  Further  Reading.  ^  —  It  is  not  necessary  that  the  student  at 
this  stage  read  further  upon  the  matters  treated  in  the  Introductioriy  but 
the  following  volumes  will  give  pleasure  and  profit,  so  far  as  time  can  be 
secured  for  them. 

Waterloo,  Story  of  Ah  (a  novel  —  a  dramatic  picture  of  prehistoric 
development)  ;  Dodge,  Our  Wild  Indians ;  Keary,  Dawn  of  History ; 
Chaillu,  Viking  Age  ;  Brinton,  American  Race ;  Mason,  Woman'' s  Share 
in  Primitive  Culture;  Sergi,  Mediterranean  Bace ;  Hoernes,  Primitive 
Man. 

For  advanced  students :  Gomme,  Ethnology  and  Folk  Lore ;  Lang, 
Custom  and  Myth ;  Lang,  Myth.,  Bitual,  and  Beligion ;  Spencer,  Cere- 
monial Institutions ;  Tylor,  Early  History  of  Mankind;  Taylor,  Origin 
of  the  Aryans  (a  valuable  book,  still  holding  to  a  modified  form  of  the 
Aryan  hypothesis);  Ripley,  Baces  of  Europe;  Robertson,  Saxon  and 
Celt;  Ridge  way,  Early  Age  of  Greece. 

Topics  for  Written  Reports,  — 1.  Stages  of  prehistoric  progress  — 
Stone  Age  to  Iron  (advanced  students  may  consult  Lewis  H.  Morgan's 
Ancient  Society,  9-13,  for  a  good  classification).  2.  Kitchen-middens. 
3.  Early  weaving.  4.  History  of  fire-making.  5.  Early  pottery. 
6.  Early  ornament.         7.    Primitive  counting. 


1  Fuller  descriptions  of  the  books  referred  to  in  these  lists,  with  dates  and 
prices,  are  given  in  the  Appendix. 


PART   1. 

OEIENTAL   HISTORY. 


CHAPTER   I. 

A   PRELIMINARY   SURVEY. 

11.  The  Rediscovery.  —  Our  knowledge  of  the  oldest  history- 
is,  for  the  most  part,  new.  Until  about  a  century  ago  it  com- 
prised only  scattered  statements  of  Hebrew  writers  and  some 
fragmentary  traditions  preserved  by  the  Greeks.  A  few 
inscriptions  in  ancient  characters  were  known  to  exist  in  the 
Nile  valley,  but  no  one  could  read  them. 


Portion  of  Rosetta  Stone,  containing  the  hieroglyphs  first  deciphered. 


Then,  about  1800  a.d.,  Napoleon's  soldiers,  in  laying  founda- 
tions for  a  fort  on  the  Rosetta  branch  of  the  Nile,  found  the 
"Rosetta  Stone."  This  three-foot  slab  of  black  basalt  bore 
three  inscriptions,  one  in  the  ancient  hieroglyphics   of  the 

11 


12  A  PRELIMINARY   SURVEY.  [§12 

pyramids,  one  in  a  later  Egyptian  writing  (like'wise  forgotten), 
and  one  in  Greek.  A  French  scholar  proved  the  three  to  be 
one  inscription  in  triplicate,  and  by  means  of  the  Greek  he  was 
able  to  fix  the  values  of  the  other  characters.  With  this  key 
the  Egyptian  written  language  was  finally  reconstructed.  More 
recently,  a  like  task  has  been  accomplished  for  the  Assyrian 
(§  72,  note). 

At  first,  however,  there  was  little  to  read ;  but  a  new  interest 
had  been  aroused,  and,  since  1850,  vast  sums  and  indomj^ble 
energy  have  been  expended  in  exploration  in  the  East.  The 
sites  of  forgotten  cities,  once  world-capitals  but  now  long  buried 
beneath  desert  sands,  have  been  rediscovered.  Many  of  them 
were  found  to  contain  great,  copiously  illustrated  libraries  in 
papyrus  or  on  stone  and  brick.  These  have  been  deciphered 
in  some  measure  by  an  army  of  devoted  scholars,  and  since  1880 
the  results  have  appeared  rapidly  in  English.^ 

12.  The  Three  Centers :  the  Nile,  the  Euphrates,  and  the  Road 
between.  —  The  first  homes  of  civilization  were  in  the  lower 
valleys  of  the  Nile  and  the  Euphrates.  In  each  of  these  regions 
a  cheap  food  supply  made  possible  at  an  early  date  a  dense 
population,  with  a  leisure  and  military  class  supported  by  the 
agricultural  masses.  In  both  districts,  too,  at  a  still  earlier 
time,  the  marvelously  fertile  soil  attracted  enterprising  tribes 
from  different  sources,  and  so  brought  about  a  mixture  of 
races  —  apparently  a  condition  favorable  to  progress. 

These  two  countries,  Egypt  and  Ohaldea,  were  some  eight 
hundred  miles  apart  in  a  straight  line.  Practically  the  distance 
was  greater.  The  only  feasible  route  ran  along  two  legs  of  a 
triangle  —  north  from  Egypt  through  the  Syrian  valleys  to  the 
upper  waters  of  the  Euphrates,  and  then  down  that  valley. 
Except  upon  this  Syrian  side,  however,  neither  country  in  the 


1  Indeed  our  knowledge  of  these  civilizations  is  still  in  its  infancy.  The 
British  Museum  now  contains  unread  inscriptions  that  at  the  present  rate 
of  reading  would  occupy  scholars  a  century  more,  and  the  accumulation  is 
rapidly  gaining  upon  the  readers. 


§  12]  THE   NILE   AND   THE   EUPHRATES.  13 

time  of  its  greatness  had  any  important  foreign  relations. 
Africa  had  no  great  civilization  but  the  Egyptian;  and  the 
Euphrates  region  was  shut  off  from  India  and  ChiiiaJ)y  vast 
deserts  and  lofty  mountains.  Thus  thi§,  Syrian  district,  inter- 
mediate between  the  Asiatic  and  the  African  states,  became 
their  battle  ground  and  trade  exchange.  At  times,  too,  it  comes 
into  prominence  itself  as  an  independent,  third  center  of  civili- 
zation. 

A  more  detailed  survey  of  Egyptian  boundaries  will  make 
clearer  the  significance  of  this  intermediate  land.  To  the  west 
of  the  Nile  state  lay  Libya,  stretching  across  the  continent,  — 
an  immense  but  inhospitable  tract.  The  portion  bordering 
Egypt  was  particularly  barren,  forming  a  wide  abatis  against 
attack  by  the  scattered  tribes  of  the  desert.  To  the  south,  at  a 
distance,  was  a  more  powerful  neighbor.  Ethiopia,  including 
Nubia  and  fertile  Abyssinia,  exceeded  Egypt  in  size,  and  its 
brave  and  warlike  people  possessed  some  civilization,  probably 
drawn  from  Egypt.  However,  a  desert,  extremely  difficult  for 
an  army  to  traverse,  extended  a  twelve-day  march  between  the 
two  states,  and  communication  by  the  river  was  absolutely  shut 
off  by  long  series  of  rocky  gorges  above  the  cataracts  of  Egypt ; 
so  that,  in  the  days  of  her  power,  Egypt  had  little  to  fear  from  the 
less  advanced  country.  On  the  other  sides,  the  line  of  defense 
formed  by  the  Mediterranean  and  the  broad  moat  of  the  Red 
Sea  was  broken  only  at  the  extreme  north  by  the  isthmus. 

Thus,  with  sides  and  rear  protected,  Egypt  faced  Asia  across 
this  narrow  bridge.  Here,  too,  the  immediate  district  was 
largely  desert;  but,  after  all,  Arabia  numbered  a  large  popu- 
lation of  nomad  tribes,  always  harassing  the  Egyptian  fron- 
tier, and  sometimes  constituting  a  formidable  danger;  while 
directly  north  of  the  isthmus  the  narrow  strip  of  habitable 
land  between  the  desert  and  the  sea  was  a  nursery  of  warlike 
peoples.  Here  dwelt  the  Phoenicians,  Philistines,  Canaanites, 
Hebrews,  and  Hittites.  Usually  they  were  all  tributary  to 
Egypt  or  Chaldea,  from  whom,  too,  their  civilization  was 
derived ;  but  at  times,  when  both  these  powers  were  weak,  there 


14  A  PRELIMINARY  SURVEY.  [§  13 

arose  iudependent  Syrian  kingdoms,  like  that  of  the  Jews  under 
David  and  Solomon.  Indeed,  this  district  might  have  escaped 
the  fatal  consequences  of  its  position  on  the  road  from  Africa 
to  Asia  if  its  peoples  could  have  united  against  their  common 
foes ;  but  ranges  of  mountains  and  rivers  broke  it  into  five  or 
six  unequal  states,  all  small  and  mutually  hostile.  Two  of  them 
—  those  of  the  Jews  and  the  Phoenicians  —  will  have  special 
notice  in  Chapter  IV. 

13.  The  Periods.  —  In  each  of  the  two  greater  centers  there 
is  a  long  period  of  development  in  isolation.  Then,  with  exten- 
sion of  power,  comes  a  period  of  intercourse,  hostile  or 
friendly,  through  the  intermediate  region.  Finally  follows  a 
period  of  union  —  at  first  by  the  dominance  of  one  or  the 
other,  and  then  by  the  subjection  of  all  this  Eastern  world  to 
the  new  power  of  Persia.  This  Persian  Empire  almost  at 
once  comes  in  conflict  with  the  Greeks,  and  so  introduces  us 
to  European  history. 


CHAPTER  11. 

EGYPT. 

I.   GEOGRAPHY. 

Egypt  as  a  geographical  expression  is  two  things — the  Desert  and 
the  Nile.    As  a  habitable  country,  it  is  only  one  thing—  the  Nile. 

—  Alfred  Milner. 

14.  Territory.  —  The  Egypt  of  a  map  includes  about  as 
much  land  as  Colorado  or  Italy ;  but  seven  eighths  of  it  is  only 
a  wide  sandy  border  to  the  real  Egypt.  This  latter  is  the 
valley  and  delta  of  the  Nile  —  from  the  cataracts  to  the  sea. 
It  is  smaller  than  Maryland,  and  falls  into  two  natural  parts. 
Upper  Egypt  is  the  valley  proper;  it  is  a  strip  of  vegetable 
mold  about  six  hundred  miles  long  and  usually  about  ten 
miles  wide  —  a  slim  oasis  between  parallel  lines  of  rugged, 
desolate  hills.  Then,  for  the  remaining  hundred  miles,  the 
valley  broadens  suddenly  into  the  delta ;  this  Lower  Egypt  is 
a  squat  triangle  of  rich,  level  plain  resting  on  a  two-hundred- 
mile  base  of  curving  coast,  where  shifting,  marshy  lakes  meet 
the  sea. 

15.  The  Significance  ol. the  Nile.  —  Rain  rarely  falls  any- 
where in  the  cdSlt^jf;  »r— ja<-^  heavy  shower  not  oftener  than 
once  in  ten  or  fifteen  years.  Egypt,  therefore,  as  the  Greeks 
said,  is  "  the  gift  of  the  Nile."  Except  for  that  river.  Upper 
Egypt  would  be  part  of  the  Sahara,  and  Lower  Egypt  would 
have  remained  a  sandy  bottom  beneath  the  Mediterranean 
waves. 

And  what  the  river  has  made,  it  sustains.  Toward  the 
close  of  the  eight  cloudless  months  before  the  annual  over- 
flow, there  is  a  brief  period  when  the  land  seems  gasping  for 

16 


16 


EGYPT. 


[§15 


moisture,  "  only  half  alive,  waiting  the  new  Nile."  The  rise 
and  the  withdrawal  of  the  inundation  are  gradual,  lasting 
from  July  to  November ;  but  during  the  days  while  the  flood 
is  at  its  height,  Egypt  is  a  sheet  of  turbid  water,  between  two 
lines  of  rock  and  sand,  marked  off  into  compartments  by  the 

raised  roads  con- 
necting the  towns 
and  villages  that 
dot  the  waters ; 
while  from  their 
sandy  plateau  at  a 
distance  the  pyra- 
mids look  down 
upon  the  scene,  as 
they  have  done 
each  season  for 
six  thousand 
years.  The  rich 
loam  dressing,  so 
brought  down 
from  the  hills  of 
Ethiopia,  is  spread 
over  the  fields 
and  maintains 
their  unwearied 
fertility,  while  the 
long  soaking  sup- 
)lies  moisture  to 
the  soil  for  months 
to  come. 

Man,    however, 


in  making  Egypt.     In  prehistoric  times. 


has  had  his  share 
the  inhabitants  had 
learned  to  control  and  distribute  the  overflow,  by  a  compli- 
cated network  of  dikes,  reservoirs,  and  canals.  This  system  was 
so  complete  that  under  the  ancient  monarchy  the  peasantry 


§17]  POLITICAL   HISTORY.  17 

cultivated  more  soil  and  produced  more  wealth  than  in  modern 
times,  until  English  control  was  recently  established. 

16.  Political  Geography ;  Growth  of  a  Kingdom.  — Civilization 
in  Egypt  appears  well  advanced  with  its  first  records,  about 
4500  or  5000  B.C.  We  cannot  know  how  many  thousands  of 
years  it  had  taken  for  this  culture  to  develop  from  the  sav- 
agery of  the  surrounding  tribes.  Certainly  the  earliest  dwell- 
ers in  the  valley  were  in  a  most  primitive  stage,  using  the 
rudest  of  stone  implements  and  practicing  savage  and  bar- 
barous customs.  Gradually  centers  of  culture  appeared  — 
perhaps  as  a  result  of  conquest  from  Asia  —  and  contending 
principalities  arose.  These  were  united  by  centuries  of 
conflict  into  the  two  kingdoms  of  Upper  and  Lower  Egypt. 
The  former  principalities  remained,  however,  as  "nomes,"  or 
administrative  units.  The  more  important  nomes  seem  to 
have  been  ruled  by  hereditary  princes  under  the  supreme 
monarch ;  and,  throughout  Egyptian  history,  at  intervals  rival 
cities  renewed  their  struggle  for  headship. 

The  Nile,  which  had  made  physical  Egypt,  played  its  part, 
too,  in  making  political  Egypt.  The  regulation  of  the  an- 
nual inundation  must  have  been  the  earliest  common  interest 
of  the  people.  No  doubt  neighboring  villages  waged  count- 
less bloody,  semi-aquatic  wars  before  they  learned  the  costly 
lesson  of  cooperation ;  but  the  waste  and  the  danger  from  sep- 
arate or  hostile  action  must  have  helped,  from  early  periods, 
to  force  home  the  need  of  concert  and  union. 


ilpS^^K' 


AL  HISTORY.i 

17.  The  Memphite  Period. — The  later  Egyptians  classified 
their  native  kings  into  some  thirty  "  dynasties."  These  may 
be  grouped  further  into  four  periods,  according  to  the  location 
of  the  center  of  power,  —  Memphite,  Theban,  Saite,  and  Alex- 

1  The  following  three-page  skeleton  of  forty-five  hundred  years  of  history 
is  designed  for  reading  and  reference,  not  for  close  study. 


18  EGYPT.  [§  18 

andrian.  The  first  ten  dynasties  ruled  at  or  near  Memphis  in 
Lower  Egypt.  This  period  of  the  "Ancient  Empire"  lasted 
to  2800  B.C.  At  a  very  early  date  the  Memphite  princes  con- 
quered the  upper  valley  also,  and  made  one  kingdom  of  all 
Egypt.  The  monarchs  of  the  fourth  dynasty  built  the  greatest 
of  the  pyramids  for  their  tombs ;  and  these  impressive  monu- 
ments to  their  pitiless  selfishness  were  the  oldest  source  of  our 
knowledge  of  antiquity  until  Professor  Petrie,  in  the  closing 
years  of  the  nineteenth  century,  discovered  the  written  records 
of  the  first  three  dynasties. 

18.  The  Theban  Period.  —  The  later  part  of  the  long  suprem- 
acy of  Memphis  was  a  time  of  anarchy  and  decay.  Then  rival 
princes  at  Thebes,  in  Upper  Egypt,  seized  the  kingdom.  They, 
too,  comprised  ten  dynasties  (llth-20th),  lasting  another  seven- 
teen hundred  years,  to  1100  e.g.,  but  the  period  is  divided  by 
a  time  of  foreign  rule,  making  three  subperiods. 

a.  The  Early  Tlieban  Period :  to  the  Hyksos  Conquest.  —  The 
great  eleventh  and  twelfth  dynasties  reorganized  the  state,  and, 
in  a  century  of  warfare,  subdued  Ethiopia  and  the  negro  tribes 
of  the  upper  Nile.  The  characteristic  works  of  the  period 
were  vast  internal  improvements.  With  reference  to  these,  a 
king  of  the  twelfth  dynasty  boasts  in  his  epitaph  that  all  his 
commands  had  "  ever  increased  the  love  his  subjects  bore  him  " ; 
and  Rawlinson  says  (Ancient  Egypt,  II.  74) :  — 

"  The  second  Egyptian  civilization  differed  in  many  respects  from  the 
first.  The  first  was  self-seeking,  stately,  cruel.  The  second  was  utilita- 
rian, beneficent,  judicious.  The  encouragement  of  trade,  the  digging  of 
wells,  the  formation  of  reservoirs,  the,proteGtioh  of  roads,  the  building  of 
ships,  and  the  exploration  of  hitherto  unknown  seas,  .  .  .  such  were  the 
objects  which  the  monarchs  of  the  eleventh  dynasty  set  before  them. 
Content  with  rude  coffins  and  humble  sepulchers  [instead  of  pyramids], 
they  were  able  to  employ  the  labor  of  their  subjects  in  productive  pur- 
suits." 

b.  The  Hyksos.  —  Another  of  the  intervals  of  decay  that  so 
strangely  follow  the  outbursts  of  glory  through  all  Egyptian 
history  left  the  country  subject  to   invading  nomads   from 


18] 


POLITICAL   HISTORY. 


19 


Arabia.  These  Hyksos,  or  Shepherd  Kings,  maintained  them- 
selves in  Egypt  about  four  hundred  years  (2000-1600  B.C.). 
They  destroyed  a  great  part  of  the  records  of  the  previous 
civilization,  except  those  hidden  in  tombs,  and  their  period  itself 
is  one  of  scanty  remains.     They  harried  the  land  cruelly  for 


Sculptured  Head  of  Thutmosis  III.,  of  the  eighteenth  dynasty,  who  in 
twelve  great  campaigns  first  carried  Egyptian  arms  from  the  isthmus  to 
Nineveh.  His  mummy,  recently  discovered,  indicates  that  this  represen- 
tation idealized  his  features. 

a  time,  as  invaders ;  then  from  some  seat  in  the  Delta  they 
ruled  Egypt  through  tributary  kings ;  and  finally  they  took  on 
Egyptian  culture  and  became  themselves  Egyptian  sovereigns, 
c.  TJie  "  Later  TJieban  "  Period.  —  The  native  line  of  mon- 
archs  had  remained,  however,  as  under-kings  at  Thebes; 
finally,  after  another  long  war,  they  expelled  the  Hyksos,  and 


20  EGYPT.  [§  19 

began  the  "later  Theban"  period.  Shortly  after  this,  the 
eighteenth  dynasty  raised  Egypt  to  its  highest  pitch  of  power. 
The  Hyksos  conquest  seems  to  have  crushed  internal  rivalries 
for  a  season,  and  to  have  introduced  a  more  effective  and  cen- 
tralized administration,  to  which  the  new  Theban  monarchs 
succeeded.  Between  1600  and  1400  B.C.,  Egypt  recovered 
Ethiopia,  and,  for  the  first  time  entering  Asia,  conquered  the 
various  Syrian  states,  finally  reaching  the  Tigris  and  securing 
at  least  a  nominal  supremacy  over  Babylonia. 

Tliis  was  the  first  political  union  of  the  East.  It  paved  the  way 
for  future  unions,  and  so  was  a  step  toward  the  empires  of 
Persia,  of  Alexander,  and  of  Rome.  In  Egypt  itself,  the 
booty  and  the  multitudes  of  captives,  together  with  the  tribute 
in  Asiatic  products,  led  to  the  introduction  of  new  arts  and  to 
greater  luxury.  In  science,  too,  this  new  East  had  much  to 
teach  the  African  civilization. 

About  1320  B.C.  a  new  and  surprising  enemy  appeared. 
The  Libyan  tribes  (§  12),  aided  by  many  strange  "  peoples  of 
the  sea "  (Greeks  among  them),  all  but  seized  the  Delta.  A 
little  later,  the  Hittites  from  Asia  Minor  attacked  Syria  in  a 
long  series  of  campaigns  (§§  41,  56).  Thus  in  their  later  period 
the  power  of  the  Theban  kings  suffered  some  eclipse. 

During  this  weaker  period  the  Hebrew  serfs  escaped  from 
Egypt.  They  seem  to  have  come  in  during  the  rule  of  the 
friendly  Arabian  Hyksos;  the  powerful  monarchs  of  the  re- 
stored native  dynasty  reduced  them  to  slavery ;  but  now,  in 
the  time  of  Egypt's  weakness,  the  Israelites  fled  again  to  the 
Arabian  desert  (§  60). 

19.  The  Saite  Period.  —  Then  the  capital  returned  to  the 
Delta,  and  was  located,  after  a  time,  at  the  new  city  of  Sais. 
The  change  probably  indicates  internal  dissensions.  Certainly 
the  dominion  in  both  Africa  and  Asia  narrowed,  until,  after 
six  hundred  years  of  rule  in  Syria  and  on  the  Upper  Nile  (as 
long  a  time  as  separates  us  from  the  last  crusades),  Egypt  was 
driven  again  within  her  ancient  bounds,  and  finally  became 


§20]  POLITICAL   HISTORY.  21 

herself  subject,  first  to  Ethiopia  (730  b.c),  and  then  to  Assyria 
(672B.C.).  n^   «= 

Twenty  years  later,  Psametichus,  ^  |' J^ one  of  the 

native  tributary  rulers,  restored  Egyptian  independence,  and 
began  the  later  Sai'te  period,  which  was  to  last  a  little  over 
a  century.  Psametichus  himself  was  probably  of  Libyan 
blood.  He  opened  Egypt  to  foreigners,  and  especially  wel- 
comed the  Greeks,  who  were  coming  into  notice  as  soldiers 
and  sailors.  This  is  probably  the  period  of  the  most  impor- 
tant Egyptian  influence  upon  Europe.  Not  only  did  individual 
travelers,  like  Solon  and  Thales,  visit  Egypt  (§  125  and  §  142), 
but  great  numbers  of  Greek  mercenaries  served  for  a  time  in 
the  army,  and  considerable  Greek  settlements  were  established 

in  the  country.  Neco,  ***^  ^sV'  *^^  second  king  of  this 
restored  monarchy,  about  600  b.c,  revived  an  ancient  attempt 
to  cut  a  canal  through  the  isthmus,  and  apparently  secured 
the  circumnavigation  of  Africa  by  his  Phoenician  sailors.^ 

20.  Under  Foreign  Rule.  —  The  favor  shown  foreigners  seems 
to  have  disgusted  the  soldier  class,  who  finally  emigrated  in 
great  numbers  to  Ethiopia.  This  made  easy  the  conquest  by 
Persia  in  525  b.c,  and  Egyptian  independence  under  native 
sovereigns  disappeared  forever.  Egypt  was  ruled  as  a  group 
of  provinces  under  Persian  satraps  for  two  centuries.  Then 
Alexander  the  Great  established  Greek  sway  over  all  the  Per- 
sian world.  At  his  death  Egypt  did  become  again  a  separate 
state,  but  under  the  Greek  Ptolemies  ruling  from  their  new 
Greek  capital  at  Alexandria.  Cleopatra,  the  last  of  this  line 
of  monarchs,  fell  before  Augustus  Caesar,  and  Egypt  became  a 
Roman  province,  30  b.c 


1  Herodotus,  the  Greek  historian  who  tells  us  the  story,  adds:  "  On  their 
return  they  reported  (others  may  believe  them  but  I  will  not)  that  in  sailing 
from  east  to  west  around  Africa  they  had  the  sun  on  their  right  hand,"  This 
report,  which  Herodotus  could  not  believe,  is  good  proof  to  us  of  the  sailors' 
truthfulness. 


22  EGYPT.  [§  21 

The  latter  part  of  the  last  period  really  belongs  to  Greek  and  Roman 
history.  The  forty-two  hundred  years  of  earlier  history  may  be  summar- 
ized briefly.  The  kings  of  the  Delta  unite  Egypt,  and  rule  for  seventeen 
hundred  or  two  thousand  years  (as  long  a  time  as  separates  us  from  the 
birth  of  Christ).  Under  Theban  kings  Egyptian  rule  is  extended  over 
nearly  all  the  Oriental  world  ;  this  period,  too,  covers  seventeen  hundred 
years ;  it  is  broken  by  four  hundred  years  of  subjection  to  the  Hyksos, 
and  the  last  two  hundred  years  also  are  centuries  of  decline.  In  the  next 
six  hundred  years,  under  a  second  period  of  Delta  kings,  Egypt  contracts 
to  her  ancient  limits.  Then  she  becomes  subject  to  Asiatic  states,  which 
in  turn,  two  hundred  years  later,  fall  under  European  rule. 


III.    PEOPLE,  SOCIETY,  CIVILIZATION. 

21.  Races  and  Population.  —  At  least  three  race  elements 
went  to  form  the  ancient  Egyptian  —  Berber,  Arabian,  Negro, 
and  possibly  the  Abyssinian ;  but  before  the  beginning  of  his- 
tory these  had  been  welded  into  one  type  which  persists  to-day 
after  so  many  later  infusions. 

As  in  other  countries  with  an  hereditary  aristocracy,  nobles 
and  commoners  came  to  differ  physically.  The  later  sculptures 
and  mummies  show  the  nobles  tall,  lithe,  and  handsome,  with 
imperious  carriage;  and  the  lower  classes,  heavier  of  feature 
and  dumpy  in  build.  The  population  in  historic  times  num- 
bered from  five  to  seven  millions.  Herodotus  says  the  country 
contained  twenty  thousand  "  towns,"  or  villages.^ 
• 

22.  Social  Classes  and  Government.  —  The  organization  of 
society  was  closely  connected  with  the  system  of  landholding. 
In  theory  the  monarch,  or  Pharaoh,  was  absolute  master  of  the 
people  and  absolute  owner  of  the  soil.  In  practice  his  author- 
ity was  limited  by  the  power  of  the  organized  priests  and  by 
the  necessity  of  conciliating  the  ambitious  nobles.  As  to  the 
land,  the  monarch  kept  a  portion  in  his  own  hands  to  cultivate 

1  Turkish  misrule  had  reduced  this  population  in  the  first  of  the  nineteenth 
century  to  about  two  and  a  hall  millions.  After  Egypt  became  virtually  in- 
dependent of  Turkey,  and  still  more  after  it  came  under  English  control,  the 
population  increased  again  rapidly  to  some  nine  millions  in  1897. 


22] 


PEOPLE,   SOCIETY,   CIVILIZATION. 


23 


by  servile  labor  directed  by  royal  stewards,  but  the  larger  part 
he  parceled  out  among  the  nobles. 

These  nobles  in  return  were  bound  to  pay  a  fixed  amount  of 
produce,  and  to  furnish  and  lead  a  certain  number  of  soldiers 
in  war.  On  the  death  of  a  landholder,  his  holding  in  theory 
reverted  to  the  king,  but  it  was  always  conferred  by  him  at 
once  upon  the  heir ;  so  that  in  practice  it  was  a  family  prop- 
erty, subject  to  fixed  rent  in  produce  and  in  service.     Within 


Photograph  of  a  Modern  Egyptian  Woman  sitting  by  a  Sculptured 
Head  of  an  Ancient  King.  —  From  Maspero's  Dawn  of  Civilization. 


his  domain  the  noble  was  himself  absolute;  he  executed  juc 
tice,  levied  taxes,  kept  up  his  arm3^  Like  the  king,  he  culti- 
vated part  of  the  land  himself  by  his  dependents,  and  part  he 
let  out  in  large  holdings  to  aristocratic  vassals,  who  stood  to 
him  as  he  to  the  king. 

A  considerable  part  of  the  land  —  perhaps  one  third  —  was 
attached  to  the  temples,  free  of  any  obligation  except  the 
maintenance  of  the  temple  worship.  It  had  become  really  the 
property  of  the  organized  and  powerful  priesthoods. 


24  EGYPT.  t§  22 

Actual  labor  upon  all  the  land  was  performed  by  a  peasant 
class  not  unlike  that  found  in  Egypt  to-day.  Some  of  them 
rented  small  farms;  but  a  great  majority  were  day  laborers  or 
held  only  insufficient  lots  on  precarious  terms.  They  were  not 
bound  to  the  soil,  however,  as  the  like  class  was  later  in  Europe ; 
they  could  move  about  at  will ;  but,  just  as  the  great  noble  had 
a  master  and  protector  in  Pharaoh,  and  the  smaller  noble  in 
the  larger  one,  so  the  peasant  must  remain  attached  to  some 
patron,  or  he  was  liable  to  become  the  prey  of  any  powerful 
enemy.  Public  opinion  formed  some  check,  however,  upon 
arbitrary  tyranny,  and  perhaps  the  poor  were  as  safe  as  they 
have  been  in  most  countries  in  controversies  with  the  rich  and 
powerful.  The  oldest  written  "  story  "  in  the  world  (surviving 
in  a  papyrus  of  the  twelfth  dynasty)  gives  an  interesting 
illustration:  a  peasant,  robbed  through  a  legal  trick  by  the 
dependent  of  a  royal  officer,  appeals  to  the  judges  and  finally 
to  the  king ;  the  king  commands  redress,  enjoining  his  officer 
to  do  justice  "like  a  praiseworthy  man  praised  by  the  praise- 
worthy." Such  appeals  were  probably  no  more  difficult  to  make 
than  on  the  continent  of  Europe  all  through  the  Middle  Ages. 

In  the  towns  there  was  a  large  middle  class  —  merchants, 
shopkeepers,  physicians,  notaries,  builders,  and  skilled  artisans. 
The  fact  that  laborers  could  win  a  strike  (§  35)  proves  that 
their  condition  was  not  one  of  universal  misery.  The  slave 
class  was  apparently  not  very  important. 

There  was  no  real  caste  in  Egyptian  society.  As  a  matter  of 
convenience,  the  son  commonly  followed  his  father's  occupa- 
tion, but  there  was  no  law  (as  in  some  Oriental  countries)  to 
prevent  his  passing  into  a  different  class;  and  sometimes  the 
son  of  a  poor  herdsman  did  rise  to  wealth  and  power.^  Such 
progress  was  most  easily  open  to  the  scribes.  This  learned 
profession  was  recruited  from  the  brighter  boys  of  the  middle 

1  For  a  remarkable  example,  see  an  Egyptian  biography  of  such  a  self-made 
man,  in  Maspero's  Dawn  of  Civilization,  290-296.  The  Hebrew  Joseph's 
experience  is  hardly  a  case  in  point,  but  rather  an  instance  of  capricious 
lavor  such  as  is  always  possible  in  an  Oriental  despotism. 


PEOPLE,   SOCIETY,    CIVILIZATION. 


25 


and  lower  classes.  The  majority  found  employment  only  in 
clerical  work ;  but  from  the  abler  ones  the  nobles  chose  confi- 
dential secretaries  and  stewards,  and  some  of  these,  who  devel- 
oped administrative  ability,  were  promoted  by  the  Pharaohs  to 
the  highest  dignities  in  the  land.  Such  men  founded  new 
families  to  reenforce  the  ranks  of  the  nobility. 

The  soldiers  are  spoken  of  by  the  later  Greek  writers  as  a 
distinct  class,  and  have  sometimes  been  called  a  "  caste.'^  They 
were  not  an  hereditary  class,  however,  but  were  recruited  from 
all  available  sources.  They  were  kept  under  arms  only  when 
their  services  were  needed.  Each  soldier  held  a  small  farm,  of 
some  eight  acres,  exempt  from  taxes  and  dues.     Besides  the 


iPiJ|i###^ 


Shoemakers.  —  Egyptian  relief  from  the  monuments. 

enrolled  and  privileged  soldiery,  the  peasantry  were  called  out 
upon  occasion,  for  war  or  for  distant  garrisons. 

There  was  also  a  numerous  and  complicated  bureaucracy 
connected  with  the  government.  Every  despotism  has  to 
develop  such  a  class,  to  act  as  eyes,  hands,  and  feet ;  but  in 
ancient  Egypt  the  royal  officials  were  particularly  numerous 
and  important.  Until  a  late  date  the  Egyptians  had  no  money, 
and  all  the  immense  royal  revenues,  as  well  as  all  debts  between 
private  men,  had  to  be  collected  "in  kind."  The  treasurers 
must  receive  and  care  for  and  keep  account  of  cattle,  grain, 
wine,  oil,  stuffs,  metals,  jewels,  — "all  that  the  heavens  give, 
all  that  the  earth  produces,  all  that  the  Nile  brings  from  its 


■V 


26  EGYPT.  t§  22 

mysterious  sources,"  as  one  king  puts  it  in  an  inscription. 
This  meant  an  army  of  royal  officials ;  and,  for  a  like  reason, 
the  great  nobles  needed  a  large  class  of  trusted  servants. 

Thus  we  have  for  the  superstructure  of  society  a  large  ruling 
aristocracy  of  birth,  another  of  merit  (scribes  and  physicians), 
two  specially  privileged  bodies  (priests  and  soldiers),  and  the 
mass  of  privileged  officials  of  all  grades  down  to  petty  over- 
seers. To  most  of  these,  life  was  a  very  pleasant  thing,  filled 
with  active  employment  and  varied  with  manifold  recreations, 
as  the  monuments  show.  Below  these,  the  middle  class  — 
shopkeepers,  skilled  artisans,  and  peasant  proprietors  —  ranged 


Levying  the  Tax.  —  An  Egyptian  relief  from  the  monuments. 

from  comfort  to  misery.  At  the  bottom  was  a  large  agricultural 
class  heavily  burdened  with  the  weight  of  all  these  others. 
The  condition  of  this  class  is  always  bad  enough  in  Oriental 
despotisms,  falling  little  short  of  practical  slavery.  Koyal 
taxes,  in  particular,  are  exacted  harshly,  and  the  poor  peasant 
is  responsible  for  any  deficit  with  all  that  he  has,  —  even  with 
his  person  or  his  family.  All  this  was  true  in  ancient  Egypt ; 
still,  from  the  Egyptian  literature,  the  peasants  seem  to  have 
been  careless  and  gay,  petting  their  cattle  and  singing  at  their 
work,  and  the  large  population  indicates  that  they  were  pros- 
perous. Probably  they  were  as  well  off  as  the  like  class  has 
been  during  the  past  century  in  Egypt  or  in  Russia. 


24] 


PEOPLE,   SOCIETY,    CIVILIZATION. 


27 


23.  The  Position  of  Woman  was  decidedly  better  than  in  the 
Jater  Greek  civilization,  and  better  than  in  modern  Oriental 
states.  The  wife  was  the  'friend  and  companion  of  the  man. 
She  was  not  secluded  in  a  harem  or  confined  strictly  to  a 
domestic  existence,  but  appeared  in  company  and  at  public 
ceremonies.  She  possessed  equal  rights  at  law ;  and,  at  inter- 
vals, great  queens  ruled  upon  the  throne,  while  others  evidently 
molded  their  sons  and  influenced  their  husbands.  In  no 
other  country,  until  modern  times,  do  pictures  of  happy  domes- 
tic life  play  so  large  a  part. 


SpHIXX   and   PVIIAMID. 


24.  Industries  and  the  Arts.  —  The  skilled  artisans  included 
brickworkers,  weavers,  blacksmiths,  goldsmiths,  coppersmiths, 
upholsterers,  glass-blowers,  potters,  shoemakers,  tailors,  armor- 
ers, etc.  Many  of  these  had  acquired  a  marvelous  dexterity, 
and  were  masters  of  processes  that  are  not  now  known.  The 
weavers  in  particular  produced  delicate  and  exquisite  line^, 
almost  as  fine  as  silk,  and  the  workers  in  glass  and  metal  were 
famous  for  their  skill.  Jewels  were  imitated  in  glass  so  art- 
fully that  only  an  expert  can  detect  the  fraud  by  the  appear- 


28 


EGYPT. 


[§24 


ance  to-day.  Bronze  was  introduced  at  an  early  date,  perhaps 
by  the  Phoenicians ;  but  there  is  no  evidence  of  the  use  of  iron 
until  about  800  b.c. 


Obelisk  and  Temple  of  the  Sun  at  Karnak. 


Sculpture,  painting,  and  architecture  were  the  leading  arts. 
In  the  closed  rock  tombs,  the  painting  has  lasted  with  perfect 
freshness,  but  it  perishes  almost  immediately  upon  exposure. 


§24] 


PEOPLE,   SOCIETY,   CIVILIZATION. 


29 


It  is  said  to  represent  a  high  development  in  the  use  of  color. 
Much  of  the  early  sculpture  was  lifelike;  and  the  unnatural 
colossal,  statues,  such  as  the  Sphinxes,  have  a  solemn  power  and 
gloomy  grandeur  in  keeping  with  the  melancholy  desert  that 
stretches  about  them.     This  art  reached  its  best  stage  in  the 
Memphite  period.     Later,  it  was  shackled  by  conventions.    Its 
association    with 
religion  seems  to 
have      forbidden 
change    in     its 
methods ;  and,  no 
longer  able  to  pro- 
gress, it  began  to 
decline.     But  the 
Egyptian  art  was 
architecture,  espe- 
cially  the    archi- 
tecture    of     the 
temple    and    the 
tomb.  Of  the  last, 
the  pyramids  are 
the   great    exam- 
ple, although  they 
were,     after    all, 
only  exaggerated 
reproductions    in 
stone    of    savage 
grave     mounds 
like     those     of 
our    early  North 
American  Indians.      The  Kile  has  been  credited  sometimes 
with  an  influence  upon  this  form  of  Egyptian  building,  and 
certainly  such  structures  would  be  better  adapted  than  any 
other  to  withstand  the  annual  attack  of  the  waters  in  the 
valley.     In  their  better  domestic  architecture  the  Egyptians 
used  the  true  arch,  and  in  their  temples  they  sometimes  made 


Aisle  in  the  Ruins  at  Karnak. 


30 


EGYPT. 


[§25 


use  of  graceful  columns  (both  of  which  forms  they  may  have 
taught  the  Greeks);  but  for  their  more  important  buildings 
they  preferred  massive  walls,  and  ceilings  of  immense  flat 
slabs.  The  result  is  peculiarly  imposing,  and  gives  an  impres- 
sion of  stupendous  power,  but  it  lacks  grace  and  beauty. 


25.  Literature  and  the  Hieroglyphics.  —  The  Egyptians  wrote 
religious  and  theological  works,  poems,  histories,  travels, 
novels,  orations,  treatises  upon  morals,  scientific  works, 
geographies,  cook  books,  catalogues,  and  collections  of  fairy 
stories  {Cinderella  among  them). 

The  oldest  writing,  as  with  all  early  peoples,  was  a  picture 
story,  but  on  the  first  monuments  this  had  advanced  to  a  rebus 
stage;  that  is,  the  pictures  had  become  "conventionalized"  into 
a  system  of  hieroglyphics  —  "a  delightful  assemblage  of  birds, 

snakes,  men,  tools, 
stars,  and  beasts." 
In  many  cases  one 
of  these  shrunken 
pictures  might 
stand  either  for 
a  thing  or  for 
an  idea  connected 
with  it.  Thus  O 
may  represent 
either  the  sun  or 
light.  From  their 
sound  value,  too, 
some  symbols  came  to  represent  syllables  in  longer  words. 
Then  some  of  these  semiphonetic  signs  grew  into  real  letters, 
or  signs  of  single  sounds.  Now,  if  the  Egyptians  could  have 
kept  these  last  and  have  dropped  all  the  rest,  they  would 
have  had  a  true  alphabet ;  but  this  step  they  never  took.  The 
temple  inscriptions  remained  to  the  last  a  carious  mixture  of 
thousands  of  signs  of  things,  ideas,  syllables,  and  sounds. 
When  the  writing  was  performed  rapidly  upon  papyrus  or 


A  Capital  from  Karnak. 


§26]  PEOPLE,   SOCIETY,    CIVILIZATION.  31 

upon  pottery,  the  strokes  Avere  run  together,  and  the  characters 
were  modified  gradually  into  quite  a  different  script.  This 
"  hieratic  "  writing  was  used  for  all  purposes  except  religious 
or  funeral  inscriptions.  It  was  written  with  a  reed,  in  black 
or  red  ink ;  and  the  dry  air  of  the  Egyptian  tombs  has  pre- 
served great  numbers  of  the  buried  papyrus  rolls  to  our  day.^ 

26.  Science.  —  The  Nile  has  been  called  the  father  of  Egyp- 
tian Science.  The  necessity  of  resurveying  the  land  some- 
times after  an  inundation  is  thought  to  have  had  to  do  with 
the  early  proficiency  in  geometry ;  and  the  desirability  of 
fixing  in  advance  the  exact  period  of  the  inundation  may  have 
had  some  influence  in  directing  attention  to  the  true  "  year," 
and  so  to  astronomy.  Great  progress  was  made  in  both  these 
studies.  We  moderns  who  learn  glibly  from  books  and  dia- 
grams the  results  of  this  early  labor,  can  hardly  understand 
how  difficult  a  task  confronted  these  first  scientific  observers, 
who  had  only  the  complex  book  of  the  heavens  open  to  them. 
They  seem  to  have  understood  correctly  the  revolution  of 
the  earth  and  planets  around  the  sun,  together  with  other 
celestial  phenomena  too  obscure  to  state  here ;  and  they  cer- 
tainly fixed  the  length  of  the  year  with  surprising  accuracy, 
and  invented  a  peculiar  leap  year  arrangement.  This  year, 
together  with  their  calendar  of  months,  we  get  from  them 
through  Julius  Caesar  (§  447).  They  excelled  also  in  medicine; 
and  in  arithmetic  they  dealt  readily  in  numbers  to  millions, 
with  the  aid  of  a  notation  similar  to  that  used  later  by  the 
Romans.    Thus  three  thousand  four  hundred  twenty-three  was 

represented  by  the  Romans :  MMM  C  CCCXXIII 
and  by  the  Egyptians:  t  X  X     ®@@(5HI' 

All  this  learning  is  older  than  the  Greek  by  almost  twice  as 
long  a  time  as  the  Greek  is  older  than  ours  of  to-day.     No 


1 A  good  account  of  the  hieroglyphics  is  given  in  Keary's  Dawn  of  History, 
298-303. 


32  EGYPT.  [§  27 

wonder,  then,  that  in  the  last  days  of  Egyptian  greatness,  the 
priest  of  Sais  exclaimed  to  a  visitor  from  little  Athens  whose 
fame  was  yet  to  make :  "  0  Solon,  Solon !  You  Greeks  are 
mere  children.  There  is  no  old  opinion  handed  doAvn  among 
you  by  ancient  tradition,  nor  any  science  hoary  with  age !  " 
It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  all  the  higher  science 
was  the  possession  only  of  the  priests  and  perhaps  of  a  few 
others. 

27.  Religion.  —  There  was  a  curious  mixture  of  religions. 
A  worship  of  ancestors  was  universal,  with  a  dark  background 
of  evil  spirits  and  malicious  ghosts.  Such  worship  is  found 
among  all  primitive  peoples,  and  will  be  treated  more  in  detail 
when  we  come  to  the  study  of  Greece. 

There  was  also  a  revolting  worship  of  animals  —  cats,  dogs, 
bulls,  crocodiles.  Probably  this  was  a  degraded  exaggeration 
of  a  form  of  ancestor  worship  known  as  totemism,  found  among 
many  people.  North  American  Indians  of  a  wolf  clan  or  a 
bear  clan  —  with  a  fabled  wolf  or  bear  for  an  ancestor  —  must 
on  no  account  injure  the  ancestral  animal,  or  "  totem."  Even 
Rome,  with  its  legend  of  Eomulus  nursed  by  a  wolf,  gives 
some  curious  survivals  of  an  earlier  worship  of  this  sort,  and 
on  several  occasions  late  in  history  Roman  armies  permitted 
wild  wolves  to  run  in  and  out  among  their  ranks  uninjured.  In 
Egypt,  however,  this  worship  became  more  widely  spread,  and 
took  on  grosser  features,  than  has  ever  been  the  case  elsewhere. 

Above  all  this,  there  was  a  worship  of  personified  powers  of 
nature,  —  a  belief  in  numerous  mythological  deities  and  demi- 
gods representing  natural  phenomena.  As  a  concession  to 
the  populace,  perhaps,  these  were  commonly  represented  by 
animal  symbols,  but  with  the  higher  classes  the  nature  worship 
mounted  sometimes  to  a  lofty  and  pure  worship  of  one  God 
whose  name  was,  "  /  am  that  I  am."  The  symbol  preferred 
by  the  adherents  of  this  higher  religion  was  the  disk  of  the 
sun,  for  Light,  Truth,  and  All-sustaining  Power  (§  31).  These 
higher   meanings  never  became  widespread,  of  course;   and 


§27]  PEOPLE,   SOCIETY,    CIVILIZATION.  33 

indeed  the  political  decline  after  the  great  eighteenth  dynasty- 
seems  to  have  been  connected  with  a  long  and  bitter  movement 
of  the  populace  and  the  priests  against  the  attempt  of  a 
"  heretic  king  "  to  popularize  the  "  disk  worship  "  in  its  more 
spiritual  forms. 

The  universal  practice  of  embalming  the  body  may  have 
originated  in  a  belief  in  a  resurrection  or  reincarnation,  or  per- 
haps only  in  the  savage  idea  that  the  body  remained  the  home 
of  the  ghost,  and  that,  deprived  of  it,  the  ghost  would  become 
harmful.  Indeed,  with  regard  to  a  future  life  there  seem 
to  have  been  two  or  three  stages  of  belief.     In  the  oldest 


Sculptured  Funeral  Couch  :  the  soul  is  represented  crouching  by  the 

mummy. 

tombs,  there  are  found  dishes  where  had  been  placed  food  and 
drink  for  the  ghost,  just  as  with  nearly  all  savage  peoples,  and 
as  is  still  done,  indeed,  by  the  Egyptian  peasant  after  these  six 
thousand  years  of  many  later  faiths. 

Such  practices  seem  to  originate  in  a  belief  that  the  soul 
remains  in  or  near  the  tomb,  with  but  a  pale  and  joyless  exist- 
ence. But  upon  some  such  lower  basis  there  grew  up,  among 
the  better  classes  anyway,  a  belief  in  a  truer  immortality  for 
those  who  deserved  it.  The  dead,  it  was  thought,  lived  in 
some  distant  Elysium,  where  they  had  all  the  pleasures  of  life 
without  its  pains,  —  though  this  haven  was  only  for  those  ghosts 


34 


EGYPT. 


[§28 


who  knew  certain  religious  and  magic  formulas  to  guard  against 
destruction  on  the  perilous  spirit-journey  thither,  and  who,  on 
arrival,  should  be  declared  worthy  by  the  "Judges  of  the 
Dead"  (§  29). 

28.  Morality.  —  The  standard  of  morals  was  not  high,  if 
measured  by  modern  ideas.  Some  features  of  their  life  seem 
to  us  shocking  and  obscene ;  and  the  modesty  and  refinement 


Rock-hewn  Colossi  of  Rameses  II. 


that  moderns  demand  were  totally  absent.  The  ideal  was 
soft  and  gentle,  rather  than  exacting.  They  were  a  kindly 
people.  The  sympathy  expressed  by  Egyptian  writers  for  the 
poor  (§§  29,  30,  34)  is  a  note  not  heard  elsewhere  in  ancient 
literature ;  and  even  if  mainly  sentimental,  it  speaks  some- 
thing for  the  gentleness  of  the  Egyptian  aristocracy.  On  the 
whole,  all  scholars  agree  in  giving  the  Egyptians  high  praise 
among  the  peoples  of  antiquity:  "More  moral,  sympathetic, 
and  conscientious  than  any  other  ancient  people,"  says  Petrie; 


§29]  ILLUSTRATIVE   EXTRACTS.  35 

"  If  less  refined  than  Athens*  yet  in  some  points  both  more 
moral  and  more  civilized,"  asserts  Rawlinson ;  Maspero  styles 
the  profession  of  faith  in  their  Repudiation  of  Sins  "  among 
the  noblest  bequeathed  us  by  the  ancient  world,"  indicating,  as 
it  does,  "  a  keen  sense  of  obligation  not  only  to  the  gods,  but 
also  to  one's  fellow-men";  Simcox's  Primitive  Civilization 
says  of  Egyptian  epitaphs,  "  In  no  other  country,  ancient  or 
modern,  do  we  find  so  clear  and  full  a  description  of  purely 
domestic  virtues  as  forming  the  best  title  to  regard";  while 
Professor  Petrie  sums  up  the  matter,  —  "  The  Egyptian,  without 
our  Christian  sense  of  sin  or  self-reproach,  sought  out  a  fair 
and  noble  life.  .  .  .  His  aim  was  to  be  an  easy,  good-natured, 
quiet  gentleman,  and  to  make  life  as  agreeable  as  he  could  to 
all  about  him." 

IV.    ILLUSTRATIVE  EXTRACTS. 

29.  From  the  Repudiation  of  Sins,  to  be  made  before  the 
Judges  of  the  Dead.  (Many  of  these  phrases  are  found  upon 
the  most  ancient  tombs.  In  the  later,  but  very  old.  Book  of 
the  Dead  they  are  collected  and  harmonized.  The  parts  given 
here  show  a  sense  of  duty  toward  one's  fellow-men.  Much 
of  the  omitted  part  has  to  do  with  ceremonial  justification. 
For  more  extended  quotations,  see  Maspero's  Dawn  of  Civiliza- 
tion, 188-190.) 

"Hail  unto  you,  ye  lords  of  Truth!  hail  to  thee,  great  god,  lord  of 
Truth  and  Justice  !  .  .  .  I  have  not  committed  iniquity  against  men  !  I 
have  not  oppressed  the  poor !  .  .  .  I  have  not  laid  labor  upon  any  free 
man  beyond  that  which  he  wrought  for  himself !  .  .  .  I  have  not  caused 
the  slave  to  be  ill-treated  of  his  master  !  I  have  not  starved  any  man,  I 
have  not  made  any  to  weep,  ...  I  have  not  pulled  down  the  scale  of  the 
balance  !  I  have  not  falsified  the  beam  of  the  balance  !  I  have  not  taken 
away  the  milk  from  the  mouths  of  sucklings !  .  .  .  There  is  no  crime 
against  me  in  this  land  of  the  Double  Truth !  .  .  . 

"  Grant  that  he  may  come  unto  you  —  he  that  hath  not  lied  nor  borne 
false  witness,  .  .  .  but  who  feedeth  on  truth,  ...  he  that  hath  given 
bread  to  the  hungry  and  drink  to  him  that  was  athirst,  and  that  hath 
clothed  the  naked  with  garments ;  ...  his  mouth  is  pure  ;  his  two  hands 
are  pure." 


36  EGYPT.  [§30. 

From  an  Inscription  by  an  Ancieftt  Noble.  —  "I  have  caused  no  child 
of  tender  age  to  mourn  ;  I  have  despoiled  no  widow,  I  have  driven  away 
no  tiller  of  the  soil.  .  .  .  None  about  me  have  been  unfortunate,  nor 
starving  in  my  time." 

30.  From  the  Precepts  of  Ptah-hotep,  a  noble  of  the  fifth  dy- 
nasty. (It  takes  some  twenty  pages  of  ordinary  print  to  repro- 
duce this  collection  of  precepts,  which  are  nearly  twice  as  old 
as  Solomon's  proverbs.  The  Papyrus,  now  at  Berlin,  which 
contains  them  is  the  oldest  book  in  the  world.  They  are  in 
verse.  A  complete  translation  is  given  in  the  Records  of  the 
Past,  III.) 

"  Be  not  arrogant  because  of  that  which  thou  knowest,  no  artist  being 
in  possession  of  the  perfection  to  which  he  should  aspire." 

"  Inspire  not  men  with  fear.  [This  is  addressed  to  officers  and  judges.] 
Listen  to  the  discourses  of  the  petitioner  ;  be  not  abrupt  with  him.  The 
way  to  secure  a  clear  explanation  is  to  listen  with  kindness." 

''  Keep  thyself  from  every  attack  of  bad  humor." 

"Treat  thy  dependents  well." 

"  If  thou  hast  become  great  after  having  been  little,  .  .  .  harden  not 
thy  heart.  .  .  .  Thou  art  only  become  the  steward  of  the  good  things  of 
God.'' 

"  The  obedience  of  a  docile  son  is  a  blessing.  .  .  .  The  son  who  accepts 
the  word  of  his  father  will  attain  to  old  age,  for  obedience  is  of  God.  .  .  . 
I  have  myself  in  this  way  become  one  of  the  ancients  of  the  earth ;  I  have 
passed  one  hundred  and  ten  years  of  life." 

31.  From  a  Hymn  by  King  Khuniatonu,  fifteenth  century  B.C., 
in  worship  of  Aten  the  Sun-disk,  symbol  of  God.  (Given  in 
full  in  Petrie's  Egypt,  II.  211-218.) 

"  Thy  appearing  is  beautiful  in  the  horizon  of  heaven, 
O  living  Aten,  the  beginning  of  life  !  .  .  . 
Thou  fillest  every  land  with  thy  beauty. 
Thy  beams  encompass  all  lands  which  thou  hast  made. 
Thou  bindest  them  with  thy  love.  .  .  . 
The  birds  fly  in  their  haunts  — 
Their  wings  adoring  thee.  .  .  . 

The  small  bird  in  the  egg,  sounding  within  the  shell  — 
Thou  givest  it  breath  within  the  egg.  .  .  . 


§34]  ILLUSTRATIVE   EXTRACTS.  37 

How  many  are  the  things  which  thou  hast  made  1 

Thou  Greatest  the  land  by  thy  will,  thou  alone, 

With  peoples,  herds,  and  flocks.  .  .  . 

Thou  givest  to  every  man  his  place,  thou  framest  his  life." 

32.  From  a  Dialogue  between  an  Egyptian  and  his  Soul  (Berlin 
Papyrus,  quoted  in  Maspero's  Dawn  of  Civilization,  399). 

"I  say  to  myself  every  day  :  As  is  the  convalescence  of  a  sick  person, 
who  goes  to  the  court  after  his  affliction,  such  is  death.  ...  I  say  to  myself 
every  day  :  As  is  the  inhaling  of  the  scent  of  a  perfume,  such  is  death. .  .  . 
I  say  to  myself  every  day :  As  a  road  which  passes  over  the  flood  of  inun- 
dation, as  a  man  who  goes  as  a  soldier  whom  nothing  resists,  such  is 
death.  ...  I  say  to  myself  every  day  :  As  the  clearing  again  of  the  sky, 
as  a  man  who  goes  out  to  catch  birds  with  a  net  and  suddenly  finds  him- 
self in  an  unknown  district,  such  is  death." 

33.  From  the  Address  by  the  Ghost  in  the  Book  of  the  Dead. 

—  "I  live  upon  loaves,  white  wheat,  beer,  red  wheat.  .  .  .  Place  me  with 
vases  of  milk  and  wine,  with  cakes  and  loaves,  and  plenty  of  meat,  in  the 
dwelling  of  Anubis  [the  tomb]." 

"Grant  to  me  the  funeral  food,  the  drinks,  the  oxen,  the  geese,  the 
fabrics,  the  incense,  the  oil,  and  all  the  good  and  pure  things  upon  which 
the  gods  live." 

34.  From  a  Writer  of  the  Time  of  Rameses  II.,  fourteenth 
century  b.c,  in  pity  of  the  miseries  of  the  Fellahin. 

"  Dost  thou  not  recall  the  picture  of  the  farmer,  when  the  tenth  of  his 
grain  is  levied  ?  Worms  have  destroyed  half  of  the  wheat,  and  the  hip- 
popotami have  eaten  the  rest ;  there  are  swarms  of  rats  in  the  fields,  the 
grasshoppers  alight  there,  the  cattle  devour,  the  little  birds  pilfer,  and  if 
the  farmer  lose  sight  for  an  instant  of  what  remains  upon  the  ground, 
it  is  carried  off  by  robbers ;  the  thongs,  moreover,  which  bind  the  iron 
and  the  hoe  are  worn  out,  and  the  team  has  died  at  the  plough.  It  is 
then  that  the  scribe  steps  out  of  the  boat  at  the  landing-place  to  levy  the 
tithe,  and  there  come  the  keepers  of  the  doors  of  the  granary  with  cud- 
gels and  the  negroes  with  ribs  of  palm-leaves,  crying  :  '  Come  now,  com  ! ' 
There  is  none,  and  they  throw  the  cultivator  full  length  upon  the  ground  ; 
bound,  dragged  to  the  canal,  they  fling  him  in  head  first  [probably  a 
figurative  way  of  saying  that  he  was  forced  to  work  out  his  tax  on  the 
canals]  ;  his  wife  is  bound  with  him,  his  children  are  put  into  chains ; 
the  neighbors,  in  the  meantime,  leave  him  and  fly  to  save  their  grain." 


38  EGYPT.  [§35 

35.  Strikes  among  the  Egyptians  (adapted  from  the  account 
in  Maspero's  Struggle  of  the  Nations,  539-541). 

"  Kations  were  allowed  each  workman  at  the  end  of  every  month  ;  but, 
from  the  usual  Egyptian  lack  of  forethought,  these  were  often  consumed 
long  before  the  next  assignment.  Such  an  event  was  usually  followed  by 
a  strike.  On  one  occasion  we  are  shown  the  workmen  turning  to  the 
overseer,  saying :  '  We  are  perishing  of  hunger,  and  there  are  still  eighteen 
days  before  the  next  month.'  The  latter  makes  profuse  promises ;  but, 
when  nothing  comes  of  them,  the  workmen  will  not  listen  to  him  longer. 
They  leave  their  work,  and  gather  in  a  public  meeting.  The  overseer 
hastens  after  them,  and  the  police  commissioners  of  the  locality  and  the 
scribes  mingle  with  them,  urging  upon  the  leaders  a  return.  But  the 
workmen  only  say  :  '  We  will  not  return.  Make  it  clear  to  your  superiors 
down  below  there.'  The  official  who  reports  the  matter  to  the  authorities 
afterwards,  seems  to  think  the  complaints  well  founded,  for  he  says,  '  We 
went  to  hear  them,  and  they  spoke  true  words  to  us.'  " 

36.  A  Modern  Impression. 

' '  Two  vast  and  trunkless  legs  of  stone 
Stand  in  the  desert.     Near  them,  on  the  sand, 
Half-sunk,  a  shattered  visage  lies. 

And  on  the  pedestal,  these  words  appear  : 

'  My  name  is  Ozymandias,  king  of  kings. 

Look  on  my  works,  Ye  Mighty,  and  despair  ! ' 

Nothing  beside  remains.     Round  the  decay 

Of  that  colossal  wreck,  boundless  and  bare, 

The  lone  and  level  sands  stretch  far  away."  —  Shellet. 


For  Further  Reading.  — Maspero's  Life  in  Ancient  Egypt  and  Assyria, 
and  Egyptian  Archaeology,  or,  by  the  same  author,  Daion  of  Civilization; 
Rawlinson's  Ancient  Egypt  (somewhat  out  of  date,  but  very  readable), 
and  his  Egypt,  in  the  Stories  of  the  Nations  series. 

For  advanced  students  :  Becords  of  the  Past  (edited  by  Sayce);  Petrie's 
Egypt,  Ten  Tears'  Digging  in  Egypt,  and  Religion  and  Conscience  in 
Egypt;  Maspero's  Struggle  of  the  Nations,  and  Tlie  Passing  of  the 
Empires. 

For  the  vexed  question  of  Egyptian  chronology,  see,  preferably,  Petrie's 
Egypt,  I.  248-254.  A  margin  of  a  hundred  years  must  be  allowed  for 
error  in  the  early  period, 'and  dates  are  given  in  round  numbers  until  the 


§36]  ILLUSTRATIVE   EXTRACTS.  39 

Assyrian  conquest  (672  b.c).  Mr.  Cecil  Torr,  Memphis  and  Mycenae 
(1896) ,  argues  for  much  later  dates ;  but,  so  far,  Egyptian  scholars  pay 
little  attention  to  him. 

At  the  publication  of  this  volume,  the  recent  discoveries  of  the  remains 
of  the  first  three  dynasties  have  not  been  treated  fully  in  any  publication 
available  for  high  schools ;  an  interesting  sketch  may  be  found  in  the 
Atlantic  for  October,  1900. 

Topics  for  Reports  or  Papers.  —  1.  The  pyramids.  2.  Sacred 
animals.  3.  What  can  be  learned  regarding  occupations,  manners, 
etc.,  from  the  illustrations  in  books  upon  Egypt.  4.  Sports  in  Egypt. 
5.  Daily  life.  6.  Corv^es  in  ancient  and  modern  Egypt.  7.  Ancient 
irrigation  system,  including  an  account  of  Lake  Moeris.  8.  Irrigation 
system  under  English  rule  (see  Milner's  England  in  Egypt,  280-322). 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   TIGRIS-EUPHRATES   STATES. 
I.     UNITY   OF  THE   EAST  AFTER   1600  B.C. 

37.  About  1600  b.c.  the  reaction  against  the  Hyksos  con- 
quest had  carried  the  Egyptians,  in  turn,  into  Asia  (§  18  c). 
There,  just  across  the  isthmus,  they  came  upon  a  new  civiliza- 
tion, whose  original  home  they  reached,  after  many  campaigns, 
on  the  banks  of  another  great  stream  strangely  like  the  river 
of  Egypt. 

For  nearly  half  all  recorded  time  the  two  civilizations  had 
been  developing  in  isolation.  The  Asiatic  was  possibly  the 
earlier;  certainly  it  had  spread  more  rapidly,  and  was  already 
dominant  from  the  Euphrates  to  the  Mediterranean.^  The 
African  invasion  now  brought  the  two  into  contact,  and  so  marks 
an  era.  Isolated  developments  gave  way  to  one  great  civiliza- 
tion —  with  several  and  shifting  centers,  it  is  true,  but  with 
these  centers  closely  bound  together.  Western  Asia  became 
covered  with  a  network  of  roads,  garrisoned  at  important 
points  by  fortresses;  and  along  these  roads,  from  the  Nile  to 
the  Euphrates,  there  hurried  for  centuries  incessant  streams 
of  merchants,  couriers,  diplomats,  and  travelers. 

II.     GEOGRAPHY. 

38.  The  Two  Rivers.  —  A  mighty  desert  stretches  across 
Asia  from  the  Ked  to  the  Yellow  Sea.  Its  smaller  and 
western  part,  a  series  of  low,  sandy  plains,  is  really  a  continua- 

1  Very  recent  excavations  strengthen  the  theory  that  the  Nile  civilization 
itself  was  derived  from  that  of  the  Euphrates ;  but,  if  so,  all  connection  had 
long  been  lost  when  history  began.  See  Sayce's  "  Introduction  "  to  Maspero's 
Passing  of  the  Nations. 

40 


§  39]  GEOGRAPHY.  41 

tion  of  the  African  desert;  the  eastern,  or  truly  Asiatic,  portion 
consists  of  lofty,  arid  plateaus  traversed  by  rugged  mountains. 
The  two  parts  are  divided  by  a  patch  of  luxuriant  vegetation 
reaching  away  from  the  Persian  Gulf  to  the  northwest.  This 
oasis  is  the  work  of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates.  These  rivers 
have  never  impressed  men  as  has  the  more  mysterious  Nile, 
but  they  have  played  a  hardly  less  important  part  in  human 
history.  Rising  on  opposite  sides  of  the  snow-capped  Arme- 
nian mountains,  they  approach  each  other  by  great  sweeps 
until  they  form  a  common  valley,  and  then  they  flow  in  par- 
allel channels  for  the  greater  part  of  their  course.  The  land 
between  them  has  always  been  named  from  them :  the  Jews 
called  it  "  Syria  of  the  Two  Rivers  " ;  the  Greeks,  Mesopota- 
mia, or  the  " Between-Rivers '^  country;  the  modern  Arabian 
inhabitants,  "The  Island";  while  anciently  the  Euphrates 
itself  bore  the  fitting  name,  "  Soul  of  the  Land." 

39.  Natural  and  Political  Divisions.  —  This  valley  falls  into 
three  distinct  parts,  two  of  which  are  of  special  importance. 

Chcddea.  —  The  lower  portion  consists  of  alluvial  deposits 
carried  out  in  the  course  of  ages  into  the  Persian  Gulf.  In 
area  it  equals  modern  Denmark,  and  is  over  twice  the  size  of 
the  real  Egypt.  Like  Egypt,  its  fertility  in  ancient  times  was 
maintained  largely  by  an  annual  overflow,  regulated  by  dikes, 
canals,  and  reservoirs.  Wheat  and  barley  (which  still  grow 
wild  in  the  abandoned  bottoms  near  the  mouth  of  the  Euphra- 
tes) are  believed  to  have  been  indigenous  here;  certainly  it 
was  from  Chaldea  that  their  cultivation  spread  west  to  Europe. 
Herodotus  (writing  in  the  fifth  century  b.c.)  says :  — 

"  Of  all  countries  that  we  know  there  is  none  so  fruitful  in  grain.  The 
yield  commonly  is  two  hundred  fold  and  sometimes  three  hundred  fold.i 

1  Herodotus,  I.  193.  The  statement  is  supported  by  other  observers.  A 
Minnesota  farmer  sows  two  bushels  of  wheat  to  the  acre ;  two  hundred  fold 
would  mean  a  crop  not  of  fifteen  or  eighteen,  but  of  four  hundred  bushels. 
That  of  course  is  an  impossibility.  The  statement  of  Herodotus  can  hold  good 
only  on  the  supposition  that  a  very  thin  sowing  was  enough  — a  half  bushel  or 
less  to  the  acre. 


42  THE  TIGRIS-EUPHRATES  STATES.  [§40 

The  leaves  of  the  wheat  and  barley  are  four  fingers  wide.  As  for  the 
millet  and  sesame,  I  will  not  state  their  height,  for  I  am  sure  1  should  not 
be  believed  by  those  who  have  not  lived  in  that  country." 

The  blade  of  the  wheat  was  so  luxuriant,  other  writers  tell  us, 
that  it  was  customary  to  mow  the  fields  twice  and  then  turn  in 
cattle  to  crop  it  off,  so  as  to  make  it  ear. 

The  Euphrates  valley  has  lost  its  ancient  fertility,  of  which 
we  know  only  from  these  statements  of  the  Greeks.  During 
the  last  few  centuries,  under  Turkish  rule,  the  last  vestiges  of 
the  ancient  engineering  works  have  gone  to  ruin.  As  a  result, 
in  this  early  home  of  human  culture  the  uncontrolled  overflow 
of  the  river  now  turns  the  eastern  districts  into  a  dreary 
marsh;  while  on  the  west  the  desert  sands  have  drifted  in 
to  cover  the  most  fertile  soil  in  the  world,  and  the  sites  of 
scores  of  mighty  cities  are  only  shapeless  mounds,  that  look  at 
first  like  natural  hills,  where  nomad  Arabs  camp  for  a  night. 

Assyria.  —  To  the  north,  the  alluvial  plain  rises  to  a  broad 
and  rugged  tableland.  The  more  fertile  portion  lay  on  the 
eastern,  or  Tigris  side,  and  was  about  three  times  the  extent  of 
Chaldea.  Here  clustered  many  cities  which  were  finally  to  be 
combined  into  the  monarchy  of  Assyria. 

Mesopotamia  Proper.  —  The  northw^estern  portion  of  the  val- 
ley—  to  which  part  the  name  of  Mesopotamia  is  sometimes 
especially  applied  —  was  less  fertile  and  of  little  political  im- 
portance ;  but  at  its  extreme  limit  this  district  opened  upon 
the  northern  parts  of  Syria  —  the  middle  land  destined  to  fall 
to  the  Nile  or  to  the  Euphrates  as  the  prize  of  war. 

III.    POLITICAL   HISTORY. 

40.  The  First  Chaldean  Empire.  —  Three  empires  rose  in  turn 
in  this  double  valley  :  two  in  the  south,  with  the  center  at 
Babylon  on  the  Euphrates  ;  and,  between  the  periods  of  their 
rule,  a  greater  one  in  the  north,  with  Nineveh  on  the  Tigris 
for  its  capital.  The  later  Chaldean  scholars  filled  the  gaps  in 
their  knowledge  of  their  country's  early  history  with  fabulous 


§40]  POLITICAL   HISTORY.  43 

annals  reaching  back  seven  hundred  thousand  years ;  but  these 
stories  are  of  interest  only  for  an  account  of  a  creation  and 
deluge  similar  to  that  in  the  Hebrew  Genesis.^ 

The  earliest  historical  date  is  that  of  Sargon  the  Elder,  about 
3800  B.c.^  At  this  time  Chaldea  comprised  many  powerful 
cities,  each  a  separate  state  striving  for  leadership.     One  of 


Fragment  of  Assyrian  "  Deluge-tablet. 


the  most  ancient  capitals  was  Ur,  in  the  south,  the  home  of 
Abraham  in  later  times.  About  2400  b.c.  the  political  center 
moved  up  the  valley  to  Babylon  —  the  Chaldean  Thebes. 
Indeed,  Babylon  soon  attained  a  preeminence  never  secured 

1  See  Maspero's  Dawn  of  Civilization,  565-572. 

2  Recent  excavations  have  established  the  reality  of  this  sovereign,  who, 
until  lately,  has  been  considered  mythical. 


44  THE   TIGKIS-EUPHRATES  STATES.  [§41 

in  Egypt  by  any  one  city,  and  its  name  has  been  ever  since  a 
symbol  for  "  vague  magnificence  and  undefined  dominion." 

When  Babylon  had  centralized  Chaldea,  her  power  spread 
rapidly  over  the  rest  of  Mesopotamia,  and,  before  2000  b.c, 
over  Syria  to  the  Mediterranean.  For  several  centuries  after- 
ward the  fashions  of  the  Chaldean  capital,  in  costumes  and 
cosmetics,  were  copied  in  the  cities  of  Syria,  and  her  complex 
cuneiform  script  was  used  and  her  extensive  literature  was 
read  by  great  numbers  of  people  all  over  Western  Asia. 

41.  Assyria.  —  Assyria  appeared  as  a  dependent  province 
of  Babylon  in  the  nineteenth  century.  About  1300  b.c,  the 
northern  country  temporarily  became  the  mistress,  but  the 
next  two  centuries  were  filled  with  struggles  between  the  two 
rivals.  During  this  time  Egypt  was  still  supreme  in  southern 
Syria,  though  she  had  lost  the  north  to  the  Hittites,  a  strange 
people  who  had  descended  from  the  Taurus  Mountains. 
Finally,  about  1100  b.c,  the  Assyrian  king,  Tiglath-Pileser  /., 
shattered  the  Hittite  power  and  probably  extended  his  sway 
to  the  sea ;  but  for  some  centuries  more  the  rule  of  Assyria 
in  Western  Asia  was  subject  to  frequent  eclipse.  In  745  b.c, 
however,  the  adventurer  Pul,  originally  a  gardener,  seized  the 
throne,  and,  assuming  the  name  of  the  first  great  conqueror, 
Tiglath-Pileser  (IL),  founded  the  real  Assyrian  Empire.  This 
was  soon  to  become  the  greatest  state  that  the  world  had  seen 
so  far,  and  it  represented  a  higher  organization  of  govern- 
ment than  anything  that  had  gone  before  (§  74).  Sargon  11. 
(722  B.C.)  carried  away  the  Ten  Tribes  of  Israel  into  captivity 
and  reduced  Egypt  to  a  tributary  state.  This  was  the  second 
complete  political  union  of  the  East  (§  18).  Sargon's  son,  Sen- 
nacherib, is  the  most  famous  Assyrian  monarch.  He  subdued 
the  revolted  king  of  Judah,^  but  he  will  be  better  remem- 
bered from  the  Jewish  account  of  a  mysterious  destruction  of 
his  army  in  a  second  expedition  —  smitten  by  "  the  angel  of 

1  2  Kings  xviii.,  and  the  Assyrian  story  in  this  volume,  §51;  Maspero's 
Passing  of  the  Empires,  28t>-295,  gives  a  full  modern  version. 


§42]  POLITICAL  HISTORY.  45 

the  Lord."  This  is  the  incident  commemorated  by  Byron's 
lines :  — 

"  The  Assyrian  came  down  like  a  wolf  on  the  fold, 
His  cohorts  were  gleaming  with  purple  and  gold  ; 

Like  leaves  of  the  forest  when  autumn  hath  blown, 
That  host,  on  the  morrow,  lay  withered  and  strown." 

Curiously  enough,  contemporary  Assyrian  history  makes  no 
mention  of  this  reverse.  The  empire  certainly  recovered 
quickly,  and  the  later  part  of  Sennacherib's  rule  marks  the 
height  of  Assyrian  power.  Thirty  years  later,  Egypt  revolted ; 
twenty  years  more,  and  Babylon  followed;  then  devastating 
Scythian  hordes  poured  in  from  the  north  ;  and  in  606  b.c.  the 
new  power  of  the  Medes,  aided  by  Babylonia,  captured  Nine- 
veh itself.  The  Assyrian  Empire  disappeared,  and  the  proud 
"  city  of  blood,"  which  had  razed  so  many  other  cities,  was 
given  over  to  sack  and  pillage.  Two  hundred  years  later  the 
Greek  Xenophon  could  not  even  learn  the  name  of  the  crum- 
bling ruins,  when  he  came  upon  them.  At  last  all  signs  of 
human  habitation  disappeared,  and  the  very  site  was  forgotten 
until  its  rediscovery  in  recent  times.^ 

42.  The  New  Babylonian  Empire.  —  Babylon  had  broken  out 
in  many  a  fierce  revolt  during  the  six  centuries  of  subjection 
to  the  northern  state,  and  Sennacherib  declares  that  on  one 
occasion  he  razed  it  to  the  ground  in  punishment :  — 

' '  I  laid  the  houses  waste  from  foundation  to  roof  with  fire.  Temple 
and  tower  I  tore  down  and  threw  into  the  canal.  I  dug  ditches  through 
the  city,  and  laid  waste  its  site.  Greater  than  the  deluge  was  its  annihi- 
lation." 

In  625  came  the  successful  rebellion;  and  then  Babylonia 
and  Media  soon  shared  between  them  the  old  Assyrian  Em- 
pire. This  last  chapter  of  Babylonian  life  was  to  last 
less  than   a  century.     The   middle   half  of  the   period,  and 

1  Cf.  Isaiah  xiii.  19-22,  and  Jeremiah  1.  and  li.,  with  Layard's  Mneveh,  484. 


46  THE  TIGRIS-EUPHRATES   STATES.  [§43 

nearly  all  of  its  glories,  fall  to  the  reign  of  Nebuchadnezzar ^ 

Y>»Jf  )^^t:  Y  feST  >^*^'  (604-561  B.C.).  Rebel, 
lious  Jerusalem  was  sacked,  and  the  Jews  carried  into  the 
Babylonian  captivity;  the  ancient  limits  of  the  Chaldean 
Empire  were  restored,  and  the  ancient  architectural  glories 
and  engineering  works  renewed.  But  in  538  Babylon  fell 
before  the  Persians  (§  69),  and  empire  passed  from  the 
Euphrates  valley  until  the  rise  of  the  Mohammedan  state  at 
Bagdad,  thirteen  hundred  years  later. 

IV.    SOCIETY  AND   CULTURE. 

43.  Races. — The  first  inhabitants  of  Chaldea  whom  we  can 
trace  were  already  a  mixed  race,  called  Accadians.  After  reach- 
ing some  civilization,  they  were  conquered  at  an  early  date  by 
a  less  cultivated  people,  speaking  a  Semitic  language.  The 
union  of  the  two  elements  made  the  historic  Chaldeans.  As- 
syria was  more  purely  Semitic.  This  difference  in  origin  may 
have  had  something  to  do  with  the  fact  that  the  quick-witted 
Babylonians  made  their  country  such  a  hive  of  industry  and 
were  so  fond  of  letters  and  other  peaceful  pursuits ;  while  the 
hook-nosed,  larger-framed,  fiercer  men  of  northern  Mesopotamia 
cared  mainly  for  war  and  commerce,  and  possessed  only  a 
borrowed  art  and  literature. 

44.  Cuneiform  Writing. — The  early  Accadian  inhabitants  had 
a  system  of  hieroglyphs  not  unlike  the  Egyptian.  These  they 
painted  at  first  on  the  leaves  of  the  papyrus,  which  grew  in  the 
Euphrates  as  well  as  in  the  Nile ;  at  a  later  time  they  came 
to  cut  the  characters  with  a  metal  "stylus"  in  clay  tablets, 
which  were  then  baked.  This  change  of  material  led  to  a 
change  in  the  written  characters  themselves.  The  pictures 
shriveled  and  flattened  into  conventionalized,  wedge-shaped 
("cuneiform")  symbols,  that  look  like  scattered  nails  with 
curiously  battered  heads.  The  Semitic  conquerors  adapted 
this  writing  to  their  language;  and  in  Assyria  the  complex 


§44] 


SOCIETY   AND   CULTURE. 


47 


figures  were  written  in  such  minute  characters  —  six  lines  to 
an  inch  sometimes  —  that  some  authorities  believe  magnifying 


Assyrian    Tablet,  showing  older  hieroglyphics  aud    the  later  cuneiform 
equivalents  (apparently  for  purpose  of  instruction) . 


48  THE   TIGRIS-EUPHRATES   STATES.  [§45 

glasses  must  have  been  used,  —  a  surmise  that  was  strengthened 
when  the  explorer  Layard  found  a  lens  among  the  ruins  of  the 
Nineveh  library. 

45.  Literature  and  Science.  —  In  bulk  the  remains  of  this 
literature  are  immense.  Each  of  the  numerous  cities  that 
studded  the  valley  of  the  twin  rivers  had  its  library  —  some- 
times several  of  them  —  of  clay  tablets  or  bricks.  Originally 
the  libraries  contained  papyrus  rolls  also,  but  these  the  climate 
has  utterly  destroyed.  In  Babylon  the  ruins  of  one  library  con- 
tained over  thirty  thousand  tablets,  of  about  the  date  2700  B.C., 
all  neatly  arranged  in  order.  A  tablet,  with  its  condensed  writ- 
ing, corresponded  fairly  well  to  a  chapter  in  one  of  our  books. 
Each  had  its  library  number  stamped  upon  it,  and  the  collec- 
tions were  carefully  catalogued.  The  kings  prided  themselves 
on  keeping  the  collections  open  to  the  public ;  and  Professor 
Sayce  is  sure  that  "  a  considerable  portion  of  the  inhabitants 
(including  many  women)  could  read  and  write."  ^  The  literary 
class  studied  the  "  dead  "  Accadian  language,  as  we  study  Latin, 
and  the  whole  diplomatic  and  trading  classes  were  obliged  to 
know  some  of  the  contemporary  Syrian  tongues.  The  libra- 
ries contained  dictionaries  and  grammars  of  these  languages, 
and  also  many  translations,  in  columns  parallel  with  the  origi- 
nals. Scribes  were  constantly  employed  in  copying  and  editing 
ancient  texts,  and  they  seem  to  have  been  scrupulous  in  their 
work;  when  they  could  not  make  out  a  word  in  an  ancient 
copy,  they  tell  us  so  and  leave  the  space  blank. 

In  character,  however,  the  Chaldean  literature  for  the  most 
part  seems  to  a  modern  "  a  heap  of  pretentious  trash,"  partly 
because  it  is  so  infused  with  reference  to  magic  of  all  kinds, 
and  partly  because  it  has  little  in  common  with  our  modes  of 
thought.     It  does,  however,  contain  evidence  of  remarkable 


1  For  the  evidence,  see  his  Social  Life  among  the  Babylonians,  41-43. 
"The  ancient  civilized  East  was  almost  as  full  of  literary  activity  as  is  the 
world  of  to-day,"  adds  the  same  eminent  scholar,  in  rather  an  extreme  state' 
ment.    lb.  43. 


§45] 


SOCIETY  AND   CULTURE. 


49 


An  Assyrian  "Book."  — An  octagon  Assyrian  brick,  now  in  the  British 
Museum ;  after  Sayce.    This  representation  is  about  one  third  the  real  size. 


50  THE  TIGRIS-EUPHRATES  STATES.  [§46 

advance  in  science  and  in  commercial  law.  In  Geometry  the 
Chaldeans  made  about  the  same  progress  as  the  Egyptians;  in 
Arithmetic  more.  Their  notation  combined  the  decimal  and 
duodecimal  systems.  Sixty  was  a  favorite  unit  (divisible  by 
both  ten  and  twelve),  used  as  the  hundred  is  by  us.  Scientific 
Medicine  was  hindered  by  the  belief  in  charms  and  amulets ; 
and  even  Astronomy  was  studied  chiefly  as  a  means  of  fortune- 
telling  by  the  stars,  —  so  that  in  Europe  through  the  Middle 
Ages  an  astrologer  was  known  as  a  Chaldean.  However,  the 
level  plains  and  clear  skies,  as  in  Egypt,  invited  to  an  early 
study  of  the  constellations,  and  some  important  progress  was 
made.  As  we  get  from  the  Egyptians  our  year  and  months,  so 
from  the  Chaldeans  we  get  the  week,  with  its  "  day  of  rest  for 
the  soul,"  as  they  called  the  seventh  day,  and  the  division  of 
day  and  night  into  twelve  hours  each,  with  the  subdivisions 
into  minutes.  They  also  invented  the  water  clock  and  the 
sundial.  They  foretold  eclipses,  made  star  maps,  and  marked 
out  on  the  heavens  the  apparent  yearly  path  of  the  sun.  The 
zodiacal  "signs"  of  our  almanacs  commemorate  these  early 
astronomers.  Every  great  city  had  its  lofty  observatory  and 
its  royal  astronomer ;  and  in  Babylon,  in  331  B.C.,  Alexander 
the  Great'  found  a  continuous  series  of  observations  runniiag 
back  nineteen  hundred  and  three  years. 

46.  The  Industrial  Arts  and  Applied  Science.  —  To  a  degree 
peculiar  among  the  ancients,  the  men  of  the  Euphrates  made 
practical  use  of  their  science.  They  understood  the  lever  and 
pulley,  and  used  the  arch  in  vaulted  drains  and  aqueducts. 
They  invent<ed  the  potter's  wheel,  and  an  excellent  system  of 
weights  and  measures.  Their  treatises  on  agriculture  passed 
on  their  knowledge  in  that  subject  to  the  later  Greeks  and 
Arabs.  They  had  surpassing  skill  in  cutting  gems,  and  in 
enameling  and  inlaying ;  and  their  looms  produced  the  finest  of 
muslins  and  of  fleecy  woolens,  to  which  the  dyer  gave  the  most 
brilliant  colors.  In  many  such  industries  little  advance  has 
been  made  since,  so  far  as  results  are  concerned. 


§47]  SOCIETY  AND   CULTURE.  51 

47.  Social  Classes  and  Relations.  —  At  the  top,  as  in  Egypt, 
was  a  despotic  monarch  ruling  through  a  large  body  of  privi- 
leged officials ;  at  the  bottom,  a  hopeless  mass  of  peasantry  and 
slaves.  The  noble  aristocracy  of  Egypt  had  no  counterpart. 
Between  the  two  extremes  in  Chaldea  came  a  middle  class  of 
artisans,  and  of  the  educated  and  mercantile  elements.  Wealth 
counted  for  more,  and  birth  apparently  for  less,  than  in  Egypt. 
The  merchant  was  a  prominent  figure.  Even  the  extensive 
wars  of  Assyria,  especially  in  the  second  period,  cruel  as  they 
were,  were  no  doubt  essentially  commercial  in  purpose  —  to 
secure  the  trade  of  Syria  and  Phoenicia,  and  to  ruin  rival  trade 


Assyrian  Contract  Tablet  in  Duplicate.  —  The  outer  tablet  is  broken 
and  shows  part  of  the  inner  original,  which  could  always  be  consulted  if  the 
outside  was  thought  to  have  been  tampered  with. 

centers.  Deeds,  wills,  marriage  settlements,  legal  contracts  of 
all  kinds,  of  which  tens  of  thousands  still  survive,  witness  to 
the  careful  attention  paid  to  business  arrangements.  The 
numerous  signatures  of  witnesses,  in  a  variety  of  "  hand  writ- 
ings," testify  also  to  a  widespread  ability  to  write  the  difficult 
cuneiform  text.  From  these  contracts  we  learn  that  a  woman 
could  control  property  and  carry  on  business  independently  of 
her  husband ;  but  in  other  respects  her  position  was  not  so 
enviable  as  in  Egypt. 

Assyrian  royalty  may  well  stand  as  a  type  of  Oriental  des- 
potism.    The  person  of  the  king  was  surrounded  with  every- 


52  THE  TIGRIS-EUPHRATES  STATES.  [§48 

thing  that  could  give  elevation  and  charm  to  the  eyes  of  the 
masses.  Extraordinary  magnificence  and  splendor  removed 
him  from  the  vulgar  crowd.  He  gave  audience  seated  on  a 
golden  throne,  covered  by  a  purple  canopy,  which  was  sup- 
ported by  pillars  glittering  with  precious  stones.  All  who 
came  into  his  presence  prostrated  themselves  in  the  dust  until 
bidden  to  rise. 

48.  Architecture  and  Sculpture.  —  The  southern  valley  was 
destitute  of  building  stone;  but,  with  only  their  sun-dried 
bricks,  the  Babylonians  constructed  the  marvelous  tower- 
temples  and  the  elevated  gardens  in  imitation  of  mountain 
scenery,  that  called  forth  the  admiration  of  the  ancients.  These 
"Hanging  Gardens"  were  built  in  successive  terraces  to  a 
height  of  one  hundred  or  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet,  and  were 
counted  by  the  Greeks  among  the  "seven  wonders  of  the 
world." 

But  in  architecture  and  in  sculpture,  though  in  no  other  arts, 
Assyria,  the  land  of  stone,  excelled  the  land  of  brick.  The  un- 
trammeled  power  of  the  monarchs,  and  their  Oriental  passion 
for  splendor  and  color,  produced  a  sumptuous  magnificence  that 
the  more  restrained  modern  world  probably  never  equals.  The 
following  description  of  a  palace  of  ancient  Nineveh  is  from 
Dr.  J.  K.  Hosmer's  The  Jews.  The  passage  is  partly  condensed 
and  adapted. 

"  Upon  a  huge,  wide-spreading,  artificial  hill,  faced  with  masonry,  for  a 
platform,  rose  cliff-like  fortress  walls  a  hundred  feet  more,  wide  enough 
for  three  chariots  abreast  and  with  frequent  towers  shooting  up  to  a  still 
loftier  height.  Sculptured  portals,  by  which  stood  silent  guardians, 
colossal  figures  in  white  alabaster,  the  forms  of  men  and  beasts,  winged 
and  of  majestic  mien,  admitted  to  the  magnificence  within.  .  .  .  Upward, 
tier  above  tier,  into  the  blue  heavens,  ran  lines  of  colonnades,  pillars  of 
costly  cedar,  cornices  glittering  with  gold,  capitals  blazing  with  ver- 
milion, and  between  them  voluminous  curtains  of  silk,  purple  and  scar- 
let, interwoven  with  threads  of  gold.  ...  In  the  interior,  stretching  for 
miles,  literally  for  miles,  the  builder  of  the  palace  ranged  the  illustrated 
record  of  his  exploits.  The  inscriptions  were  deeply  cut  in  the  cuneiform 
character;  and  parallel  with  them,  in  scarlet  and  green,  gold  and  silver, 


49] 


SOCIETY  AND   CULTURE. 


53 


-^ 


ran  the  representation  of  the  scenes  themselves.  .  .  .  The  mind  grows 
dizzy  with  the  thought  of  the  splendor  —  the  processions  of  satraps  and 
eunuchs  and  tributary  kings,  winding  up  the  stairs,  and  passing  in  a 
radiant  stream  through  the  halls  —  the  gold  and  embroidery,  the  ivory 
and  the  sumptuous  furniture,  the  pearls  and  the  hangings." 

49.   Religion  and  Morality.  —  The  worship  of  the  dead  has 
left  plain  traces.     Each  tomb  had  an  altar  at  the  head  for 


Colossal  Man-beast  in  Alabaster,  from  the  Palace  of  Sargon  (now 
in  the  Louvre) . 

offerings  of  food ;  with  a  man  were  buried  his  arms ;  with  a 
girl,  her  scent  bottles,  combs,  ornaments,  and  cosmetics.  Min- 
gled with  this  worship,  as  in  Egypt,  and  as  one  learns  to 
expect  among  all  early  peoples,  was  a  nature  worship,  with 
numerous  gods  and  demigods.  The  usual  accompaniment  of 
ancestor  worship  is  a  belief  in  witchcraft  and  in  unfriendly 
ghosts  and  demons.     In  Chaldea  these  superstitions  appeared 


54  THE  TIGRIS-EUPHRATES  STATES.  [§50 

in  an  exaggerated  form.  Indeed,  the  medieval  representations 
of  the  devil,  with  horns,  hoofs,  and  tail,  came  from  the  Baby- 
lonians, through  the  Jewish  Talmud.  Nature  worship,  too, 
in  its  lower  stages,  is  often  accompanied  by  debasing  and 
licentious  rites,  in  which  drunkenness  and  sensuality  appear 
as  acts  of  religious  worship.  In  Babylonia  such  revolting 
features  remained  throughout  her  history.  At  the  same  time, 
some  hymns  and  prayers  rise  to  a  pure  monotheism ;  and  the 
Assyrian  felt  strongly  that  sense  of  sin  which  the  Egyptian 
lacked  and  which  has  played  so  great  a  part  in  the  Jewish  and 
Christian  religions  (§  50).  Along  with  the  early  belief  in  a 
shadowy  existence  of  the  ghost  in  the  tomb,  was  another  con- 
ception of  a  future  life  —  for  some,  in  a  hell  of  tortures  and 
pains ;  for  others,  who  knew  how  to  secure  the  divine  favor,  of 
pleasures  and  happiness  in  distant  Isles  of  the  Blest. 

In  character  the  voluptuous  Babylonians  were  gentle.  The 
warlike  Assyrians  delighted  in  cruelty,  and  their  kings  brag 
incessantly  of  torturing,  flaying,  and  impaling  great  numbers 
of  prisoners  (§  53). 

V.    ILLUSTRATIVE   EXTRACTS. 

50.  From  an  Assyrian  Prayer  for  Remission  of  Sins.  —  "  O  my 

god,  my  sins  are  many  !  .  .  .  0  my  goddess,  .  .  .  great  are  my  misdeeds  ! 
I  have  committed  faults  and  I  knew  them  not.  I  have  fed  upon  misdeeds 
and  I  knew  them  not.  ...  I  weep  and  no  one  comes  to  me  ;  I  cry  aloud 
and  no  one  hears  me  ;  ...  I  sink  under  affliction.  I  turn  to  my  merci- 
ful god  and  I  groan,  Lord,  reject  not  thy  servant,  —  and  if  he  is  hurled 
into  the  roaring  waters^  stretch  to  him  thy  hand  !  The  sins  I  have  com- 
mitted, have  mercy  upon  them !  my  faults,  tear  them  to  pieces  like  a 
garment !" 

51.  From  a  Chaldean  Hymn,  composed  in  the  city  of  Ur, 
before  the  time  of  Abraham. 

"Father,  long  suffering  and  full  of  forgiveness,  whose  hand  upholds 
the  life  of  all  mankind  1  .  .  . 
First-bom,  omnipotent,  whose  heart  is  immensity,  and  there  is  none 
who  may  fathom  it !  .  .  . 


§54 J  ILLUSTRATIVE   EXTRACTS.  55 

In  heaven,  who  is  supreme  ?    Thou  alone,  thou  art  supreme  1 

On  earth,  who  is  supreme  ?    Thou  alone,  thou  art  supreme  ! 

As  for  thee,  thy  will  is  made  known  in  heaven,  and  the  angels  bow  their 

faces. 
As  for  thee,  thy  wiU  is  made  known  upon  earth,  and  the  spirits  below 

kiss  the  ground." 

52.  From  a  Prayer  of  Nebuchadnezzar.  — "  Let  me  love  thy 
supreme  lordship ;  let  the  fear  of  thy  divinity  exist  in  my  heart ;  and 
give  me  what  seemest  good  unto  thee,  since  thou  maintainest  my  life." 

53.  Assyrian  Cruelty  in  War.  —  From  an  inscription  of  Assur- 
Natsir-Pal,  about  850  b.c.  (The  inscriptions  in  full  are  given 
in  Records  of  the  Past,  II.) 

"  They  did  not  embrace  my  feet.  With  combat  and  with  slaughter  I 
attacked  the  city  and  captured  it ;  three  thousand  of  their  fighting  men  I 
slew  with  the  sword.  Their  spoil,  their  goods,  their  oxen,  and  their  sheep 
I  carried  away.  The  numerous  captives  I  burned  with  fire.  I  captured 
many  of  the  soldiers  alive.  I  cut  off  the  hands  and  feet  of  some ;  I 
cut  off  the  noses,  the  ears,  and  the  fingers  of  others  ;  the  eyes  of  the 
numerous  soldiers  I  put  out.  I  built  up  a  pyramid  of  the  living  and  a 
pyramid  of  heads.  In  the  middle  of  them  I  suspended  their  heads  on 
vine  stems  in  the  neighborhood  of  their  city.  Their  young  men  and  their 
maidens  I  burned  as  a  holocaust.  The  city  I  overthrew,  dug  up,  and 
burned  with  fire.     I  annihilated  it." 

Of  another  city:  "The  nobles,  as  many  as  had  revolted,  I  flayed; 
with  their  skins  I  covered  the  pyramid.  Some  of  them  I  immured  in  the 
midst  of  the  pyramid  ;  others  above  the  pyramid  I  impaled  on  stakes ; 
others  round  about  the  pyramid  I  planted  on  stakes." 

54.  Sennacherib's  Account  of  his  Expedition  against  Jerusalem 
(Rawlinson,  Ancient  Monarchies,  II.  161-162). 

"Because  Hezekiah,  king  of  Judah,  would  not  submit  to  my  yoke,  I 
came  up  against  him.  ....  I  took  forty-six  of  his  strong  fenced  cities  ; 
and  of  the  smaller  towns  ...  I  took  and  plundered  a  countless  number. 
...  I  captured  and  carried  off  as  spoil  200,150  people,  old  and  young, 
male  and  female,  together  with  horses  and  mares,  asses  and  camels,  oxen 
and  sheep,  a  countless  multitude.  And  Hezekiah  himself  I  shut  up  in 
Jerusalem,  his  capital  city,  like  a  bird  in  a  cage,  building  towers  round 
the  city  to  hem  him  in,  and  raising  banks  of  earth  against  the  gates.  .  .  . 
Then  upon  this  Hezekiah  there  fell  the  fear  of  the  power  of  my  arms,  and 


56  THE  TIGRIS-EUPHRATES  STATES.  [§56 

he  sent  out  to  me  the  chiefs  and  the  elders  of  Jerusalem  with  thirty  talents 
of  gold  and  eight  hundred  talents  of  silver,  and  divers  treasures,  a  rich  and 
immense  booty." 

65.  From  a  Cylinder  of  Narbonidos,  500  B.C.  —  Narbonidos,  with 
antiquarian  zeal,  had  excavated  an  ancient  temple  to  find  the 
cylinder  of  its  founder  {Records  of  the  Past,  I.  5-6). 

"  I  sought  for  its  old  foundation-stone,  and  eighteen  cubits  deep 
I  dug  into  the  ground,  and  the  foundation-stone  of  Naram-Sin,  the  son 

of  Sargon, 
Which  for  thirty-two  hundred  years  no  king  who  had  gone  before  me 

had  seen. 
The  Sun-god,  the  great  lord  of  E-Barbara,  the  temple  of  the  seat  of  the 

goodness  of  his  heart,  let  me  see,  even  me." 


For  Further  Reading. — Sayce,  Babylonians  and  Assyrians;  As- 
syria^ its  Princes,  Priests,  and  People  ;  Social  Life  among  the  Assyrians 
and  Babylonians;  Ancient  Empires;  Rogers,  Babylonia  and  Assyria; 
Maspero,  Life  in  Ancient  Egypt  and  Assyria,  Dawn  of  Civilization, 
Struggle  of  the  Nations,  and  Passing  of  the  Empires;  Rawlinson, 
Ancient  Empires  (readable,  but  rapidly  going  out  of  date) ;  Layard, 
Nineveh  and  Babylon.  Advanced  students  will  find  an  admirable  treat- 
ment in  McCurdy's  History,  Prophecy,  and  the  Monuments. 

Topics.  —  1.    Assyrian   numeration.  2.    Babylonian   architecture. 

3.   The  Hanging  Gardens  of  Babylon.      4.   The  siege  of  Babylon  by 
Cyrus.      5.   The  daily  life  of  an  Assyrian. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  MIDDLE   STATES. 

56.  The  most  powerful  Syrian  state  was  the  strange  Hittite 
Empire  which  appeared  suddenly  about  1300  b.c,  and  contended 
on  equal  terms  for  two  centuries  with  Egypt  and  Assyria.  We 
know  little  about  it,  however,  and  its  chief  function  seems  to 
have  been  to  break  up  for  a  time  the  political  unity  of  the 
East,  and  so  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  rise  of  the  Jewish 
nation. 

The  two  Syrian  peoples  that  demand  notice  here  are  the 
Phoenicians  and  the  Hebrews.  Each  of  these  was  to  make  a 
distinct  and  important  factor  in  the  development  of  civilization. 

I.    THE  PHOENICIANS. 

57.  The  First  Men  who  went  down  to  the  Sea  in  Ships. — 

The  position  of  Chaldea  at  the  head  of  the  Persian  Gulf  was 
advantageous  for  commerce,  and  Babylonia,  in  early  times,  had 
been  a  mart  of  exchange  between  Syria  and  the  frontiers  of 
India.  But  long  before  the  year  1000  b.c.  the  Phoenicians  so 
far  surpa^ssed  these  early  traders,  that  we  think  of  their 
country  as  the  fi-^st  land  of  commerce.  To  them  the  Mediter- 
ranean was  all  that  the  Nile  was  to  the  Egyptians.  They 
dwelt  on  a  little  strip  of  broken  coast,  shut  off  from  the  con- 
tinent by  the  Lebanon  Mountains ;  the  many  harbors  invited 
them  seaward,  and  the  "  cedar  of  Lebanon  "  furnished  the  best 
of  masts  and  ship  timber.  When  history  first  reveals  the  Medi- 
terranean, about  1600  B.C.,  it  is  dotted  with  their  adventurous 
sails,  and  for  centuries  more  they  are  the  only  real  sailor  folk. 
Half  traders,  half  pirates,  their  crews  crept  from  island  port 

57 


58 


THE   MIDDLE   STATES. 


[§58 


to  port,  to  barter  with  the  natives  or  to  sweep  them  off  for 
slaves,  as  strength  and  opportunity  might  advise.  Farther 
and  farther  they  sought  wealth  on  the  sea,  until  they  passed 
even  the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  into  the  open  Atlantic,  and  until 
at  last  we  see  them  exchanging  the  tin  of  Britain,  the  amber  of 
the  Baltic,  and  the  slaves  and  ivory  of  West  Africa,  for  the 
spices,  gold,  and  precious  stones  of  India. 


58.  Disseminators  of  Civilization  and  Inventors  of  the  Alpha- 
bet. —  The  Phoenicians  were  the  first  colonizers  —  the  pre- 
cursors of  the  Greeks,  Dutch,  and  English. 
They  fringed  the  larger  islands  and  the 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean  with  trading 
stations,  some  of  which  themselves  grew  into 
centers  of  empire,  and  all  of  which  were  cen- 
ters of  civilization.  Carthage,  Utica,  Gades 
(Cadiz  on  the  Atlantic),  were  among  their 
colonies.  They  worked  tin  mines,  too,  in 
Colchis,  in  Spain,  and  finally  in  Britain,  and 
so  made  possible  the  manufacture  of  bronze 
on  a  large  scale  to  replace  stone  implements 
in  Asia  and  in  Egypt,  while  they  probably 
introduced  this  material  into  many  parts  of 
Europe.  Articles  of  their  manufacture  or 
commerce  are  found  in  great  abundance  in 
the  ancient  tombs  of  the  Greek  and  Italian 
peninsulas  —  the  earliest  European  homes  of 
civilization.  Thus  in  the  most  selfish,  but 
most  effective,  way  the  Phoenicians  became 
the  missionaries  to  Europe  of  the  material 
culture  that  Asia  and  Africa  had  developed. 
It  was  their  function  in  history  not  to  create, 
but  to  disseminate.  Especially  did  they  teach 
the  Greeks,  the  teachers  of  the  rest  of  Europe. 

Their  chief  export,  some  one  has  said,  was  the  alphabet ; 
and  this  in  a  sense  they  seem  to  have  invented.     When  the 


c 

(0 

c 
8 
0. 

<0 

O 

cc 

^ 

A 

A 

^ 

^ 

B 

> 

e 

<c 

A 

>D 

D 

^ 

>^ 

E 

\" 

EH 
K 

H 
K 

I 

U 

H 

vv\ 

^ 

M 

M 

^/ 

N 

o 

0 

0 

9 

9 

9Q 

q 

P^ 

R 

vV 

^Z 

^S 

T 

T 

T 

Parts  of 
Alphabets. 


§  59]  THE  PHOENICIANS.  *  59 

Egyptians  conquered  Syria  the  Phoenicians  were  using  the 
Babylonian  cuneiform  script,  with  its  hundreds  of  difficult 
characters.  It  was  natural  that,  for  the  necessities  of  their 
widespread  commerce,  they  should  seek  a  simpler  mode  of 
communication ;  and  about  1100  b.c,  after  a  gap  of  four  cen- 
turies in  our  knowledge  of  their  writing,  we  find  them  with  a 
true  alphabet  of  twenty-two  easily-written  letters.  They  seem 
to  have  adapted  these  from  the  phonetic  symbols  intermingled 
with  the  Egyptian  hieroglyphs  (§  25).  From  this  first  alphabet 
all  the  other  true  alphabets  in  the  world  have  been  borrowed,  — 
Persian,  Hindoo,  and  Hebrew,  and  Greek  and  Latin.  It  is  one 
invention  that  has  not  had  to  be  made  twice.^ 

59.  Political  and  Social  Conditions.  —  Important  as  was  the 
part  they  played,  the  Phoenicians  in  themselves  do  not  interest 
us  particularly.  They  spoke  a  Semitic  tongue,  and  were, 
perhaps,  allied  to  the  Jews ;  but  their  religion  was  especially 
abhorrent,  prominent  as  it  was,  even  among  the  Syrian  peoples, 
for  the  licentious  features  connected  with  the  worship  of 
Astarte  (the  Moon-Goddess),  and  for  the  cruel  sacrifice  of  the 
first-born  child  to  Baal  (the  Sun-God).  Their  loose  confedera- 
cies of  cities  were  grouped  about  Sidon  or  Tyre  as  leaders, 
but  they  never  formed  a  real  state,  nor  did  they  try  to  organize 
an  empire  of  dependencies,  as  their  colony  Carthage  was  to 
do  in  Boman  times.  Satisfied ^ith  their  freedom  on  the  sea, 
they  submitted  easily,  as  a  rule,  to  any  powerful  neighbor,  — 
Assyria  or  Egypt,  —  quite  contetit  with  the  profits  of  the  trade 
thereby  opened  to  them.  As  tributaries,  they  sent  workmen 
to  construct  the  magnificent  buildings  of  Assyria  or  to  develop 
the  mines  of  Egypt,  and  they  furnished  the  fleets  of  either 
empire  in  turn.  They  were  to  these  ancient  empires  what  the 
Italian  cities  were  to  be  to  the  monarchies  of  Europe  in  the 
fifteenth  century.  Tyre  remained  a  mercantile  capital  under 
Persian  supremacy,  until  its  capture  by  Alexander  (332  B.C.). 
From  this  downfall  the  proud  city  never  recovered,  and  fisher- 

1  But  cf .  §  87,  note  2. 


60  THE  MIDDLE   STATES.  [§69 

men  now  spread  th^ir  nets  to  dry  in  the  sun  on  the  bare  rock 
that  formed  its  site. 

Ezekiel  (xxvi.,  xxvii.)  describes  the  exaltation  of  Tyre  in 
noble  poetry  that  teaches  us  much  regarding  Phoenician  trade 
and  life :  — 

*'  O  thou  that  dwellest  at  the  entry  of  the  sea,  which  art  the  merchant 
of  the  peoples  unto  many  isles,  .  .  .  thou,  O  Tyre,  hast  said,  I  am  perfect 
in  beauty.  Thy  borders  are  in  the  heart  of  the  seas ;  thy  builders  have 
perfected  thy  beauty.  They  have  made  all  thy  planks  of  fir  trees.  .  .  . 
They  have  taken  cedars  from  Lebanon  to  be  masts  for  thee  ;  they  have 
made  thy  benches  of  ivory  inlaid  in  boxwood  from  the  isles  of  Kittim 
[Kit ion  in  Cyprus].  Of  fine  linen  with  broidered  work  from  Egypt  was 
thy  sail,  .  .  .  blue  and  purple  from  the  isles  of  Elishah  [North  Africa] 
was  thy  awning.  .  .  .  All  the  ships  of  the  sea  were  in  thee  to  exchange 
thy  merchandise.  .  .  .  Tarshish  [Tartessus,  southwestern  Spain]  was 
thy  merchant  by  reason  of  the  multitude  of  all  kinds  of  riches.  With 
silver,  iron,  tin,  and  lead  they  traded  for  thy  wares.  Javan  [Greek 
Ionia],  Tubal,  and  Mesheck  [the  lands  of  the  Black  and  Caspian  seas], 
they  were  thy  traffickers.  .  .  .  They  of  the  house  of  Togarmah  [Armenia] 
traded  for  thy  wares  with  horses  and  mules.  .  .  .  The  men  of  Dedan 
were  thy  traffickers.  Many  isles  were  the  mart  of  thy  hands.  They 
brought  thee  bones  of  ivory  and  of  ebony.  ..." 

Ezekiel  names  also  Syria,  Judah,  Damascus,  Arabia  and 
Kedar,  Sheba  and  Kaamah,  and  other  "traffickers,"  and, 
likewise,  among  the  articles  of  exchange,  emeralds,  coral, 
rubies,  wheat,  honey,  oil,  balm,  wine,  wool,  yarn,  spices,  lambs, 
and  goats. 

The  prophet  gives  us  this  picture  to  throw  into  darker  colors 
his  stern  and  terrible  denunciation  because  Tyre  had  rejoiced 
at  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  a  commercial  rival. 

"Therefore  thus  saith  the  Lord  God:  Behold  I  am  against  thee,  O 
Tyre,  and  will  cause  many  nations  to  come  up  against  thee,  as  the  sea 
causeth  his  waves  to  come  up.  And  they  shall  destroy  the  walls  of  Tyre, 
.  .  .  and  .  .  .  thy  pleasant  houses.  .  .  .  And  I  will  cause  the  noise  of  thy 
songs  to  cease  ;  and  the  sound  of  thy  harps  shall  be  no  more  heard.  And 
I  will  make  thee  a  bare  rock  :  thou  shalt  be  a  place  for  the  spreading  of 
nets." 


§62]  THE   HEBREWS  — POLITICAL   HISTORY.  61 

IL  THE   HEBREWS. 
A.     Political  History. 

60.  Men   of  the  Desert:   the  Age  of  the   Patriarchs.  —  The 

Hebrews  appear  first  as  nomad  shepherds  on  the  edge  of  the 
Arabian  desert.  Abraham  aud  Jacob,  and  other  patriarchal 
chiefs  of  that  time  and  place,  probably  lived  and  ruled  much 
as  Arab  sheiks  do  in  the  same  regions  to-day. 

This  life  was  not  altered  materially,  at  first,  when  the  Hebrews 
entered  Egypt  and  settled  in  the  fertile  pasturage  of  Goshen, 
near  the  Ked  Sea,  where  flitting  Arab  tribes  have  ever  been 
wont  to  encamp.  The  iucursion  took  place  while  Egypt  was 
ruled  by  the  Hyksos  nomads  (§  18  b).  When  the  native  Egyp- 
tian rule  was  restored  by  the  Theban  kings,  "  who  knew  not 
Joseph,"  the  Hebrews  were  reduced  to  the  position  of  serfs, 
until,  taking  advantage  perhaps  of  the  disorders  of  Egypt  at 
the  time  of  the  great  Libyan  invasion  (§  18  c),  they  escaped  to 
the  neighboring  desert,  to  resume  for  a  time  their  old  life. 

61.  Settlement  in  Canaan,  and  the  Period  of  the  Judges. — 

Apparently  they  were  now  a  numerous  people  and  had  become 
accustomed  to  more  fixed  abodes.  About  1300  b.c.  they  began 
to  conquer  Palestine  for  their  home.  Then  followed  two  cen- 
turies of  incessant,  bloody  warfare  with  their  neighbors,  some 
of  whom  had  attained  a  much  higher  material  civilization  than 
these  wandering  invaders.  During  all  this  time  the  Hebrews 
remained  a  loose  alliance  of  pastoral  tribes.  Such  central 
authority  as  existed  was  represented  by  a  succession  of  popular 
heroes  like  Samson,  Jephthah,  Gideon,  and  Samuel,  known  as 
Judges.  Much  of  the  time  anarchy  ruled,  and  bands  of  robbers 
drove  travelers  from  the  highways. 

62.  The  Kings  and  Prophets.  —  Such  conditions  gradually 
brought  out  the  need  of  more  effective  union.  About  1100  b.c. 
a  stronger  central  government  was  set  up  in  the  form  of  a 
monarchy,  which  soon  became  hereditary.  Alongside  the 
kings,  however,  stood  religious  teachers,  known  as  prophets, 


62 


THE   MIDDLE   STATES. 


[§63 


who,  without  official  station,  were  also  real  rulers  of  the  people, 
and  who  did  not  hesitate  to  rebuke  or  to  oppose  a  sovereign. 
The  second  and  third  kings,  David  and  Solomon  (1055-975  b.c), 
raised  the  state  to  the  position  of  a  considerable  empire.  The 
way  had  just  been  cleared.  The  Hittites  had  ruined  the 
Egyptian  power  in  Syria,  and  then  in  turn  had  been  shattered 
by  Tiglath-Pileser,  while  the  Assyrian  power  itself,  in  some  way 

that  we  do  not  know,  had 
been  checked  in  its  career 
(§  41). 

63.   Division  and  Decline. 

—  The  union  had  not  be- 
come thorough,  however, 
and  on  the  death  of  Solo- 
mon, the  northern  ten  of 
the  twelve  tribes,  rebelling 
against  heavy  taxation,  set 
up  for  themselves  and 
formed  the  kingdom  of 
Israel.  The  southern  rem- 
nant, of  two  tribes,  became 
known  as  the  kingdom  of 
Judah.  The  first  of  these 
kingdoms  lasted  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years,  until 
Sargon  carried  the  Israel- 
.  Syria.  j^gg  j^to  that  Assyrian  cap- 

tivity in  which  they  finally  disappear  from  history  (§  41). 
Judah  lasted  four  centuries  after  the  separation,  —  most  of  the 
time,  of  course,  tributary  to  Assyria  or  to  Babylon,  —  until,  in 
punishment  for  rebellion,  Nebuchadnezzar  carried  away  the 
people  into  the  Babylonian  captivity  (§  42). 

64.  The  Priestly  Rule.  —  This  closed  the  separate  political 
history  of  the  Jews.  The  more  zealous  of  them  were  allowed 
to  return,  it  is  true,  when  the  Persians  had  conquered  Babylon 


JJEf/s ALE  M  ®  ^  ^  ■>>  / 

thlehem  Mi°^  / 

Hebron     MvS  / 

\KINGDOM  Of|^\%    /-^  / 
JUDAH    *y  ^o^  / 


\ 


t/ 


V        y 


§66]  THE   MISSION  OF  THE   JEWS.  63 

(§§  42  and  69),  and  in  internal  matters  the  priesthood  from 
this  time  exercised  a  controlling. voice ;  but  politically  Judea 
formed  a  strictly  subject  province  of  the  Persian,  Greek,  or 
Eoman  empire,  except  for  one  gleam  of  independence,  when  the 
heroic  Maccabees  rebelled  against  the  successors  of  Alexander 
in  Syria  (§  250).  A  series  of  stubborn  rebellions  against  Rome 
finally  brought  a  terrible  chastisement  in  the  year  70  a.d. 
(§  459  a).  After  a  notable  siege,  Jerusalem  was  sacked  and 
razed,  and  the  remnant  of  inhabitants  were  sold  into  slavery, 
to  remain  dispersed  among  all  lands  to  this  day. 

B.     The  Mission  of  the  Jews. 

65.  The  First  Monotheistic  People.  —  The  Hebrews  added 
nothing  to  material  civilization,  nor  did  they  contribute  directly 
to  intellectual  or  artistic  progress.  Their  work  was  higher. 
Their  true  history  is  a  record  of  the  spiritual  growth  of  a 
people. 

"  If  the  Greek  was  to  enlighten  the  world,  if  the  Roman  was  to  rule  the 
world,  if  the  Teuton  was  to  be  the  common  disciple  and  emissary  of  both, 
it  was  from  the  Hebrew  that  all  were  to  learn  the  things  that  belong  to 
another  world." — Freeman,  Chief  Periods,  Q^. 

Among  other  ancient  nations,  individuals  had  risen  at  times 
to  noble  religious  thought,  but  the  Hebrews  first,  as  a  whole 
people,  felt  strenuously  the  obligation  of  the  moral  law,  and 
first  attained  to  a  pure  worship  of  one  God.  Judaism,  in  one 
aspect,  is  a  stern  and  austere  protest  against  the  revolting 
sensuality  of  neighboring  religions  ;  in  a  still  higher  view,  it  is 
marked  by  an  almost  passionate  belief,  in  the  just  government 
of  the  world  and  in  the  final  triumph  of  righteousness. 

66.  The  Influence  of  Race  or  Environment.  —  In  experience 
and  character  the  Hebrews  were  sharply  distinguished  from 
their  Phoenician  neighbors.  The  desert  had  trained  these 
apostles  of  religious  thought,  as  the  sea  had  tr^ned  the  traders. 
The  religious  fervor  of  the  Jew  does  not  seem  to  have  been 


64  THE  MIDDLE  STATES.  [§67 

merely  a  matter  of  race.  The  Semites  of  the  coast  and  of 
Syria  —  many  or  all  of  them  allied  to  the  Hebrews  —  practiced 
the  most  cruel,  revolting,  sensual  religious  rites.  Among  the 
Semites  of  the  desert,  on  the  other  hand,  originated  Judaism, 
and  afterward  Mohammedanism  —  two  of  the  most  spiritual 
of  religions.  Of  course  no  one  will  try  to  explain  these  religions 
simply  as  products  of  physical  surroundings,  any  more  than 
simply  as  a  result  of  race ;  but  it  is  well  to  recognize  how  favor- 
able to  religious  contemplation  and  enthusiasm  were  the  soli- 
tude and  the  whole  character  of  semi-tropical  Arabian  tent  life. 

67.  Historical  GroAvth  of  the  Faith.  —  At  first  this  religious 
insight  and  firm  faith  seem  to  have  belonged  to  only  a  few  — 
to  the  patriarchs  and,  centuries  later,  to  the  prophets,  with  a 
small  following  of  the  more  spiritually-minded  of  the  nation. 
For  over  a  thousand  years  the  grosser  masses  were  always 
tending  to  fall  away  into  the  superstitions  of  their  Syrian 
neighbors.  It  is  the  merit  of  the  Hebrews  that  a  remnant 
always  clung  to  the  higher  truth,  until  it  did  become  the  uni- 
versal faith  of  a  whole  people.  No  doubt  the  Babylonian 
captivity  assisted.  The  energetic  minority  who  found  their 
way  back  to  Judea,  were  indeed  a  "  chosen  "  and  sifted  people, 
among  whom  there  was  to  be  no  more  tendency  to  idolatry. 
The  faith  of  the  patriarchs  and  prophets  became  the  soul  of  a 
nation  —  as  a  later  and  higher  development  of  that  faith  was 
to  become  the  soul  of  our  whole  civilization. 

This,  then,  was  the  mission  of  the  Hebrews.  As  Kenan  well 
says  {History  of  Israel,  I.  22) :  "  What  Greece  was  to  be  as  regards 
iiitellectual  culture,  and  Rome  as  regards  politics,  these  nomad 
Semites  were  as  regards  religion.^'  The  Jews,  therefore,  are 
sometimes  counted  a  fourth  influence,  with  Greeks,  Eomans, 
and  Teutons,  in  making  our  world  (§  3).  But,  however  indis- 
pensable, Judaism  was  an  exclusive  religion,  unfit  of  itself  to 
affect  the  world  ;  and  the  rise  and  spread  of  Christianity  belong, 
after  all,  not  solely  to  Jewish  influence,  but  quite  as  much  to 
the  history  of  the  Graeco-Roman  world  (§  506). 


§67]  THE  MISSION  OF  THE  JEWS.  65 

For  Further  Reading. —  Hebrew  history,  political  and  religious, 
must  be  studied,  of  course,  in  the  Old  Testament.  The  Jewish  historian, 
Josephus  (first  century  a.d.),  may  be  read  with  profit,  and  also  the 
Talmud,  a  collection  of  Jewish  legends  and  customs.  Modern  authorities 
are  numerous,  but  in  general  the  valuable  ones  can  be  used  only  by 
advanced  students.  Among  the  shorter  and  better  treatments  are  the 
following :  A.  H.  Sayce,  Early  History  of  the  Hebrews ;  J.  K,  Hosmer, 
The  Jews  (very  readable  ;  two  thirds  of  the  volume  is  given  to  Jewish 
history  since  the  dispersion);  Montefiore,  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1892  (the 
views  of  a  liberal  Hebrew  scholar)  ;  McCurdy,  History^  Prophecy,  and 
the  Monuments  (probably  the  best  view  of  the  relations  of  the  Hebrews 
to  other  peoples). 

Special  Report.  —  The  Talmud, 


V 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  PERSIAN  EMPIRE,  i 
I.   THE  MAP  GROWS. 

68.  New  States.  —  So  far,  we  have  had  to  do  only  with  the 
territory  described  in  §  12,  —  the  Nile  and  Euphrates  valleys, 
with  Syria  between  them.  But  shortly  before  the  overthrow 
of  Babylon,  two  new  centers  of  power  appeared,  one  on  either 
side  of  the  older  historic  field.     These  were  Persia  and  Lydia. 

Lydia  calls  for  only  brief  mention.  It  was  a  kingdom  in 
Asia  Minor  beyond  the  limits  of  the  Assyrian  power,  with, 
which,  however,  it  had  had  some  intercourse,  both  friendly 
and  hostile.  Somewhat  before  550  b.c,  its  sovereign,  Croesus, 
united  all  Asia  Minor  west  of  the  Halys  River  under  his  sway, 
and  made  the  Lydian  Empire  for  a  brief  time  one  of  the  great 
world-powers.  The  region  was  rich,  especially  in  metals; 
and  the  wealth  of  this  monarch  so  impressed  the  Greeks  that 
we  still  say,  after  them,  "  Rich  as  Croe&us."  Croesus  counted 
among  his  subjects  the  Greek  cities  that  fringed  the  western 
coast  of  Asia  Minor,  at  that  time  the  most  civilized  of  the 
Greek  people ;  and  through  this  connection  the  Greeks  were  to 
be  brought  immediately  afterward  into  contact  with  the  new 
Persian  Empire  (§  69).  • 

On  the  other  side  of  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris  lay  the  lofty 
and,  for  the  most  part,  arid  plateau  of  Iran.  This  was  the 
home  of  the  Medes  and  Persians.  The  Medes  dwelt  toward 
the  north;    the  Persians  toward  the  south.     The  two   were 


1  The  preceding  chapter,  with  its  treatment  of  minor  Syrian  states,  was  a 
necessary  interruption  in  the  story  of  political  development.  We  now  return 
to  that  subject  where  we  left  it  in  Chapter  III.,  at  the  fall  of  Babylon. 

66 


\V 


§69]  NEW   STATES.  67 

closely  connected,  apparently,  and  both,  spoke  Aryan  lan- 
guages (i.e.  allied  to  Greek,  Latin,  and  German  speech).  How 
this  came  about,  history  cannot  say  (§  6,  note  1).  They  ap- 
peared first,  about  850  b.c,  as  fierce  barbarians,  whom  the  As- 
^i-/  Syrians  found  it  needful  to  subdue  and  to  castigate  repeatedly. 

69.  Rise  and  Extent  of  the  Persian  Empire.  —  About  625  b.c. 
a  Median  leader  united  the  tribes  of  the  plateau  into  a  mon- 
archy able  to  defy,  and  finally  (606  b.c.)  to  conquer,  Assyria 
(§  41).  For  some  fifty  years  after  that,  the  world  with  which 
we  are  concerned  remained  at  peace,  divided  between  Babylon, 
Egypt,  Lydia,  and  this  new  Median  empire.  Then  Cyrus  the 
Great  (558-529  b.c),  a  tributary  Persian  prince,  by  successful 
rebellion  against  the  Medes,  transferred  leadership  to  the 
southern  part  of  the  plateau,  and  quickly  built  up  the  largest 
and  most  powerful  empire  known  up  to  that  time  in  all  his- 
tory. His  overthrow  of  Media  involved  war  with  her  allies. 
The  fall  of  Babylon  (§42)  left  him  no  rival  in  the  old  Asia; 
he  conquered  Croesus  of  Lydia  and  seized  upon  all  Asia  Minor ; 
and  a  few  years  later  his  son  subdued  Egypt.  Thus  the  new 
empire  included  all  the  old  historic  states,  together  with  the 
new  districts  of  Iran  and  Asia  Minor. 

And  now  again  the  field  of  history  widens.  The  first  four 
Persian  kings  added  further  to  their  empire :  on  the  north, 
Armenia;  on  the  east,  Afghanistan  and  northwestern  India 
(the  rich  Punjab  district  in  the  valley  of  the  Indus) ;  and,  on 
the  west,  the  European  coast  from  the  Black  Sea  to  the  Greek 
peninsula.  The  eastern  and  western  frontiers  were  farther 
apart  than  Washington  and  San  Francisco,  and  the  territory 
of  some  two  million  square  miles  (four  times  as  large  as  the 
greatest  Assyrian  Empire)  equaled  a  little  more  than  half 
modern  Europe,  or  nearly  two  thirds  the  United  States, 
and  contained  from  fifty  to  seventy-five  millions  of  people. 
It  was  bounded  on  the  south  by  seas  and  burning  deserts ;  on 
the  north  by  the  barren  steppes  of  Europe  and  Asia,  from 
which  it  was  separated  by  the  Danube,  the  Black  and  Caspian 


68  THE   PERSIAN  EMPIRE.  [§70 

seas,  the  Caucasus,  and  the  Jaxartes  River;  on  the  east  by 
the  Desert  of  Thibet  and  the  Indus ;  and  on  the  west  by  the 
African  desert,  the  sea,  and  the  little  Greek  peninsula.  Its 
only  civilized  neighbors  were  the  populous  districts  of  India 
and  the  Greeks  of  Europe. 

With  these  last  it  came  into  conflict  some  thirty  years  after 
the  death  of  Cyrus,  and  the  heroic  and  marvelous  success  of 
the  Greeks  began  a  two-thousand-year  struggle  between  Europe 
and  Asia.  The  story  belongs  to  European  history  (§  157  ff.). 
It  is  enough  here  to  note  that  the  Persian  repulse  marked  the 
limit  of  their  empire.  That  empire  lasted,  however,  a  century 
and  a  half  more,  until  Macedonian  Alexander  conquered  it  and 
established  a  modified  Greek  civilization  over  all  the  Eastern 
world  (§  240  ff.). 

II.    THE  PERSIAN  CONTRIBUTIONS. 

70.  Religion  and  Morals.  —  The  noble  religion  of  the  Per- 
sians is  contained  in  the  Zend-Avesta  —  the  Persian  Bible  — 
and  had  been  established  about  1000  b.c.  by  Zoroaster. 
According  to  this  great  teacher,  the  world  was  the  scene  of 
conflict  between  the  two  opposing  powers  of  Light  and  Dark- 
ness, or  Good  and  Evil.  It  was  the  duty  of  man  to  assist 
the  good  power,  by  killing  noxious  beasts  and  caring  tenderly 
for  other  animals,  by  redeeming  the  earth  to  fertility,  and 
by  resisting  evil  within  his  own  heart.  Idolatry  was  not 
permitted;  and  though  the  older  superstitions  cropped  out 
sometimes  in  Magism  —  the  religious  system  of  the  Median 
priests  —  and  though  there  arose  a  belief  in  a  multitude  of 
good  and  bad  angels,  still  this  faith  was  by  far  the  purest  of 
the  ancient  world,  except  that  of  the  Hebrews.  In  part,  no 
doubt,  this  similarity  in  religious  thought,  as  compared  with 
the  idolatrous  and  licentious  peoples  about  them,  explains  the 
friendly  relations  between  the  Persians  and  their  tributaries, 
the  Jews  (§  64).  The  Persian  belief  in  a  dual  principle  of 
good  and  evil  was  to  affect  Greek  philosophy  and  the  thought 
of  the  later  Christian  world. 


y^ 


§72]  PERSIA  AND   THE   SCYTHIANS.  69 

Writers  have  spoken  much  of  the  decay  of  the  early  Persian 
virtue.  Originally  Persia  was  a  land  of  hardy  shepherds.  The 
small  population  had  now  to  furnish  garrisons  for  all  the  great 
centers  of  the  empire,  while  the  nobles  were  employed  as 
governors  in  the  "^.st  imperial  organization.  Of  course  the 
old  simplicity  of  life  was  lost;  it  is  true,  too,  that  the  atti- 
tude of  the  Persians  toward  their  king  was  one  of  Oriental 
slavishness;  but  the  charge  of  degeneracy  is  not  well  sus- 
tained. Herodotus  admired  their  manly  sports  and  the  train- 
ing of  the  boys  —  "  to  ride,  to  shoot  with  the  bow,  and  to  speak 
the  truth."  To  the  last  they  fought  gallantly,  and  the  Greeks 
conquered  in  battle  because  of  improved  weapons  and  better 
tactics,  not  from  superior  bravery. 

71.  Political  Contributions.  —  The  Persians  were  soldiers  and 
rulers.  They  borrowed  their  art  and  their  material  civiliza- 
tion from  Babylon;  and,  apart  from  the  influence  of  their 
religion,  their  three  important  services  to  the  world  were  con- 
nected with  their  political  history :  (a)  the  immense  expan- 
sion of  the  map ;  (b)  the  repulse  of  the  Scythians ;  (c)  the 
higher  organization  of  imperial  government.  The  first  of 
these  has  been  dwelt  upon  in  connection  with  the  rise  of  the 
empire ;  the  other  two  demand  separate  treatment. 

III.    PERSIA  AND  THE   SCYTHIANS. 

72.  Persia  the  Champion  of  Civilization.  —  In  Greek  history, 
Persia  was  to  appear  as  the  foe  of  the  rising  European  cul- 
ture, and  so  we  are  apt  to  forget  her  great  service  as  the 
defender  of  civilization.  About  630  b.c,  shortly  before  the 
downfall  of  Nineveh,  the  frozen  steppes  of  the  north  had 
poured  hordes  of  savages  into  Western  Asia  (§  41).  These 
destructive  nomads  were  called  Scythians  by  the  Greeks.  We 
do  not  know  who  they  were,  but  the  irruption  seems  in  sonie 
respects  similar  to  those  of  the  Huns,  Turks,  and  Tartars, 
in  later  history.  They  plundered  as  far  as  Egypt,  and  made 
a  real  danger  to  all  the  culture  the  world  had  been  building 


70  THE  PERSIAN  EMPIRE.  [§73 

up  so  painfully  for  four  thousand  years.  Assyria  and  Lydia 
were  both  overrun;  and  empire  fell  rightfully  to  the  Medes 
and  Persians,  who  could  and  did  champion  the  cause  of  civ- 
ilization against  barbarism.  The  Medes  drove  the  ruthless 
ravagers  back  to  their  own  deserts;  and  the  repeated  and 
imposing  expeditions  of  the  early  Persian  kings  into  the 
Scythian  country  awed  the  barbarians  and  averted  the  danger 
for  centuries.  Darius,  the  greatest  of  the  successors  of  Cyrus, 
seems  to  have  justified  his  conquests  on  this  ground.  In  a 
famous  inscription  on  a  rock  cliff,  enumerating  his  conquests, 
he  says :  "  Auramazda  [the  God  of  Light]  delivered  unto  me 
these  countries  when  he  saw  them  in  uproar.  .  .  .  By  the 
grace  of  Auramazda  I  have  brought  them  to  order   again."  ^ 

IV.    IMPERIAL   GOVERNMENT. 

73.  The  Old  Kingdom-empires.  —  Each  kingdom  in  ancient 
times  was  administered  by  a  complex  bureaucracy,  as  in 
Egypt  (§  22) ;  but  until  about  700  b.c,  the  various  "  em- 
pires "  as  wholes  had  a  very  simple  machinery.  The  tributary 
states  retained  kings  from  their  old  royal  families  ;  the  peoples 
kept  their  separate  languages,  religions,  forms  of  government, 
laws,  and  customs.  Indeed,  they  remained  in  almost  all  re- 
spects as  separate  as  before  they  were  incorporated  in  the 
conquering  empire,  except  for  the  obligation  to  pay  tribute 
and  to  assist  in  war,  and  except  that  their  kings  were  expected 
to  attend  the  court  of  the  imperial  master  from  time  to  time 
and  to  bring  him  presents.  Two  subject  kingdoms  might  even 
make  war  upon  each  other  without  interference  from  the 
higher  king.  The  brief  empire  of  the  Jews  was  of  this 
nature.  Solomon,  the  Book  of  Kings  tells  us,  "  reigned  over 
all  the  kingdoms  .  .  .  unto  the  border  of  Egypt ;  they  brought 
presents  and  served  Solomon." 

1  Quoted  by  Ranke,  Universal  History,  113.  The  translation,  however,  is 
disputed.  The  inscription  from  which  this  is  taken  is  in  three  parallel  col- 
umns, in  different  languages,  and  served  as  the  *'  Rosetta  Stone  "  of  the  cunei- 
form writing  (§  11) . 


§75]  IMPERIAL  GOVERNMENT.  71 

Plainly,  such  a  conglomerate  empire  would  fall  to  pieces 
easily.  If  any  reverse  happened  to  the  dominant  state,  —  if 
a  foreign  invasion  or  the  unexpected  death  of  a  sovereign  oc- 
curred,—  the  whole  fabric  might  be  shattered  at  a  moment 
^  into  its  original  parts.  Then  would  follow  years  of  bloody 
war,  until  some  power  restored  the  imperial  structure.  Tran- 
quillity and  security  could  not  exist ;  and,  worst  of  all,  a  sover- 
eign state  was  sure  to  try  to  check  chronic  rebellion  by  severe 
punishments  that  often  ruined  flourishing  countries.  A  com- 
mon practice,  to  break  the  spirit  of  a  rebellious  people,  was  the 
wholesale  deportation  of  inhabitants  to  colonize  some  distant 
territory,  whose  old  inhabitants  then,  without  fault  of  their 
own,  were  transferred  to  the  depopulated  district.  In  this 
way  the  Assyrians  transplanted  Chaldeans  to  Armenia,  Israel- 
ites to  Media,  and  Arabians  and  Persians  to  Palestine.^ 

74.  Government  by  Satraps.  —  The  first  improvement  came 
from  Assyria  in  her  second  period.  The  re-founders  of  the 
Assyrian  power  in  the  eighth  century  were  organizers  as  well 
as  conquerors.  They  left  the  subject  peoples  their  own  laws 
and  customs  as  before,  but  they  broke  up  many  of  the  old 
kingdoms  into  satrapies,  or  provinces,  ruled  by  appointed  offi- 
cers, who  in  theory  were  dependent  wholly  upon  the  pleasure 
of  the  Great  King. 

75.  System  perfected  by  Darius.  —  The  Persians  inherited 
and  perfected  this  advance  in  centralization.  Darius  J.,  the 
fourth  Persian  king  (521-485  B.C.),  is  sometimes  called  the 
organizer  of  the  empire,  as  Cyrus  was  its  founder.  Improve- 
ment though  it  was,  the  Assyrian  system  was  poor  enough. 
Each  satrap  remained  virtually  sovereign  in  his  own  govern- 
ment, and  was  always  tempted  to  make  himself  an  indepen- 
dent king.    Darius  introduced  effective  checks  upon  this  danger. 

1  Longfellow's  picture,  in  Evangeline,  of  the  removal  of  a  small^population 
in  modern  times  with  all  possible  gentleness,  will  help  us  to  imagine  the  mis- 
ery that  must  have  come  from  such  transportation  of  whole  nations  by  over* 
land  journeys  of  a  thousand  miles. 


72  THE  PERSIAN  EMPIRE.  [§76 

In  each  of  the  twenty  provinces,  power  was  divided  between 
the  satrap  himself  and  the  commander  of  the  standing  army, 
who  were  separately  responsible  to  the  capital ;  moreover,  in  each 
province  was  placed  a  royal  secretary  (the  "  King's  Ear ")  to 
communicate  constantly  with  the  Great  King;  and,  most  im- 
portant of  all,  a  special  royal  commissioner  (the  "King's 
Eye"),  backed  with  military  forces,  appeared  at  intervals  in 
each  satrapy  to  inquire  into  the  government,  and,  if  necessary, 
to  arrest  the  satrap. 

76.  Post  Roads.  —  To  draw  the  distant  parts  of  the  empire 
closer,  Darius  instituted  a  magnificent  system  of  post  roads, 
with  ferries  and  bridges,  with  milestones  and  excellent  inns, 
and  with  relays  of  horses  for  the  royal  couriers.  The  chief 
road,  from  Susa  to  Sardis,  was  over  fifteen  hundred  miles  long; 
but  it  is  said  that  dispatches  were  sometimes  carried  its  whole 
length  in  six  days,  although  ordinary  travel  required  three 
months.  Benjamin  Ide  Wheeler  writes  graphically  of  this 
great  highway  {Alexander  the  Great,  196-197)  :  — 

"All  the  diverse  life  of  the  countries  it  traversed  was  drawn  into 
its  paths.  Carians  and  Cilicians,  Phrygians  and  Cappadocians,  staid 
Lydians,  sociable  Greeks,  crafty  Armenians,  rude  traders  from  the 
Euxine  shores,  nabobs  of  Babylon,  Medes  and  Persians,  galloping 
couriers  mounted  on  their  Bokhara  ponies  or  fine  Arab  steeds,  envoys 
with  train  and  state,  peasants  driving  their  donkeys  laden  with  skins  of 
oil  or  wine  or  sacks  of  grain,  stately  caravans  bearing  the  wares  and 
fabrics  of  the  south  to  exchange  for  the  metals,  slaves,  and  grain  of  the 
north,  travelers  and  traders  seeking  to  know  and  exploit  the  world,  —  all 
were  there,  and  all  were  safe  under  the  protection  of  an  empire,  the  road- 
way of  which  pierced  the  strata  of  many  tribes  and  many  cultures,  and 
helped  set  the  world  a-mixing  " 

■  77.  Permanency  o*  the  Political  System.  —  This  was  as  far  as 
imperial  organization  went  until  the  time  of  the  Eoman  world. 
It  seems  to  us  that  little  was  done  to  promote  a  spirit  of  unity 
among  the  diverse  peoples.  Each  kept  its  separate  language, 
customs,  and  religion.  Still,  for  the  times,  the  organization  of 
Darius  was  a  marvelous  work.     It  decayed  somewhat,  after  a 


§77]  IMPERIAL   GOVERNMENT.  73 

while,  but  it  remained  effective  enough  to  maintain  political 
unity  against  all  peril  from  within,  and  the  empire  lost  no 
important  territory  until  attacked  by  Europe.  Certainly  the 
Persian  system  marked  a  great  advance  over  the  earlier  two 
Vv  thousand  years  of  looser  kingdom-empires.  Indeed,  it  is  the 
most  effective  ever  used  yet  in  the  East,  and  it  is  essentially 
the  same  as  that  of  the  later  Saracen  and  Turkish  empires.  It 
was  much  more  like  the  later  Roman  imperial  government  than 
like  the  older  Asiatic  system,  and  it  gave  to  large  parts  of 
Asia  a  better  government  than  they  have  had  during  the  past 
five  hundred  years  of  Turkish  misrule  in  our  era  —  during 
which  time  populous  regions  that  under  Persia  blossomed  like 
gardens  have  become  desert  wastes  and  the  lairs  of  beasts. 


Fob  Further  Reading.  —  The  best  short  reference  on  Persia  is 
Wheeler's  Alexander  the  Great,  187-207. 

Special,  Reports.  —  1.  Zoroaster  and  his  teachings  (James  Free- 
man Clarke,  Ten  Great  Beligions ;  Maspero,  Passing  of  the  Empires). 
2.  Persian  architecture  (Rawlinson,  Ancient  Monarchies,  III.).  3.  The 
campaigns  of  Cambyses  in  Egypt.  4.  The  accession  of  Darius. 
5.  Anecdotes  from  Herodotus  regarding  Persian  kings,  and  the  historical 
value  of  the  stories. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

A  RETROSPECT. 

Brief  general  statements  can  hardly  avoid  some  element  of  error ;  and 
advancing  scholarship  is  more  and  more  modifying  the  sharp  contrasts 
that  used  to  be  drawn  between  peoples.  Still,  it  is  helpful  to  re-survey 
the  Oriental  field  rapidly  from  two  points  of  view. 

78.  Progress.  —  This  has  been  chiefly  the  point  of  view  in 
the  text,  and  it  is  the  most  important  to  hold  in  mind.  Egypt 
gave  us  the  beginnings  of  art  and  science,  and  Chaldea  devel- 
oped material  civilization  and  commercial  law.  Phoenicia  scat- 
tered the  germs  of  this  progress  over  much  of  the  Eastern 
hemisphere,  to  take  root  in  many  places.  Persia  enlarged 
many-fold  the  map  of  the  orderly  world,  beat  back  for  centu- 
ries the  danger  of  barbarian  invasion,  and  organized  an  effec- 
tive system  of  imperial  administration.  And  the  Hebrews  gave 
to  their  pure,  lofty  religious  conceptions  a  vitality  that  was  to 

.make  them  sway  the  world. 

79.  Limitations.  —  But  this  progress  was  imperfect.  Art 
and  science  became  mummy-like  through  their  adherence  to 
fixed  patterns.  Sculpture  was  rigid,  impassive,  and  unlovely, 
even  when  it  did  not  mix  the  monstrous  with  the  human. 
Architecture  sought  for  magnitude  rather  than  beauty  and  pro- 
portion. Most  religions,  however  far  they  had  progressed, 
continued  to  foster  lust  and  cruelty.  Thought  cringed  before 
superstition,  and  did  not  seek  fearlessly  to  know.  War  was 
unspeakably  inhuman  and  destructive.  Government  meant 
the  omnipotent  despotism  of  one  man  and  the  abject  servility 
of  all  the  rest.    Even  material  prosperity  was  only  for  the  few. 

Whether  the  Oriental  man  could  have  thrown  off  these  tram- 
mels if  left  longer  to  himself,  we  cannot  say  surely ;  but  twice 

74 


V 


§  79]  A  RETROSPECT.  75 

as  long  a  time  had  already  been  consumed  since  these  civiliza- 
tions had  appeared  in  full  blossom  as  has  since  sufficed  for  all 
our  Western  growth ;  and  the  relatively  slow  progress  of  the 
East  in  those  four  thousand  years,  together  with  the  stationary 
history  of  China  and  India  since,  points  to  a  probable  crystal- 
lization, rather  than  to  further  progress,  had  new  actors  not 
appeared  upon  a  new  scene. 

'    Suggestions  for  Keview  of  Part  I. 

Let  the  class  prepare  review  questions,  each  member  five  or  ten,  to  ask 
of  the  others.  Criticise  the  questions,  showing  which  ones  help  to  bring 
out  important  facts  and  contrasts  and  likenesses,  and  which  are  merely 
trivial  or  curious.  Use  the  syllabus  in  the  table  of  contents,  so  as  to  get 
clear  the  plan  of  this  part  of  the  book.  It  is  not  worth  while  to  hold 
students  responsible  for  dates  in  Part  I.,  unless,  perhaps,  for  a  few  of  the 
later  ones.  Make  list  of  important  names  or  terms  for  rapid  drill,  de- 
manding brief  but  clear  explanation  of  each  term. 


PAET   11. 

THE    GREEKS. 

Greece  —  that  point  of  light  in  histoi-y  ! — Hegel. 

We  are  all  Greeks.  Our  laws,  our  literature^  our  religion,  our  art, 
have  their  roots  in  Greece.  —  Shelley. 

Except  the  blind  forces  of  nature,  there  is  nothing  that  moves  in  the 
world  to-day  that  is  not  Greek  in  origin.  —  Henry  Sumner  Maine. 

Map  Studies. 

Note  the  three  greater  divisions :  Northern  Greece  (Epirus  and  Thes- 
saly);  Central  Greece  (a  group  of  eleven  districts,  to  the  isthmus  of 
Corinth);  and  the  Peloponnesus  (the  southern  peninsula).  Name  the 
districts  from  Boeotia  south,  and  the  chief  cities  in  each  as  shown  on  the 
map.  Which  divisions  have  no  coast  ?  Locate  Delphi,  Thermopylae, 
Tempe,  Parnassus,  Olympus,  Olympia,  Salamis,  Ithaca,  eight  islands, 
three  cities  on  the  Asiatic  side.  Draw  the  map  with  the  amount  of  detail 
just  indicated. 


CHAPTER   I. 

INTRODUCTORY   SURVEY. 

I.  THE   EUROPEAN  AND  THE   ASIATIC  TYPE. 

80.  Distinctions  in  Culture.  —  Asia  had  developed  the  first 
civilizations;  but,  at  a  later  date,  an  independent  and  more 
important  culture  began  to  rise  in  Southern  Europe.  This  new 
civilization  was  soon  to  draw  from  the  Orient  in  many  ways, 
but  it  remained  essentially  European  in  character.  Diversity 
succeeded  to  Asiatic  uniformityy  moderation  to  extravagance^ 
freedom  to  despotism. 

76 


§  81]  GREECE   TYPICAL  OF   EUROPE.  77 

81 .  Physical  Differences.  —  This  contrast  between  the  cultures 
of  Europe  and  of  Asia  is  based,  in  part,  upon  physical  differ- 
ences.   We  must  note  four  geographical  peculiarities  of  Europe. 

a.  It  is  a  peninsula,  oceanic  rather  than  continental. 

b.  It  has  a  more  temperate  climate  and  more  varied  prod- 
ucts than  the  semi-tropical  river  valleys  of  Asia. 

These  conditions  demanded  greater  exertion,  physical  and  intellectual, 
and  led  to  more  diverse  occupations  than  Asiatic  conditions  did.  The 
beginnings  of  culture  were  slower  ;  but  Man  was  finally  to  count  for  more, 
and  Nature  was  to  be  less  all-suf&cient  and  overpowering. 

c.  In  contrast  with  the  great  Asiatic  plain,  the  land  is 
broken  into  many  small  units  fitted  for  the  homes  of  distinct 
peoples,  all  close  together  and  so  invited  to  friendly  intercourse, 
but  with  natural  defenses  against  hostile  attacks  from  one 
another.  This  has  conduced  to  the  existence,  side  by  side,  of 
different  but  mutually  helpful  civilizations. 

d.  Europe  as  3(!  whole  holds  a  strategic  position  as  against 
Asia.  Physical  characteristics,  such  as  those  mentioned  in  the 
last  three  paragraphs,  were  found,  of  course,  in  some  districts 
of  Asia,  notably  in  Syria  and  some  parts  of  Asia  Minor ;  and 
accordingly  in  these  places  there  began  civilizations  marked  by 
the  " European "  characteristics  of  diversity  and  freedom;  but 
their  vicinity  to  the  earlier  and  mightier  river-empires  was 
fatal,  and  in  the  end  the  Asiatic  character  was  always  im- 
posed upon  them.  Europe  was  saved  by  its  distance  and  by 
its  position  behind  the  great  moat  of  the  Mediterranean.  This 
sea  has  been  a  decisive  factor  in  European  history  in  two 
respects,  —  as  a  road  for  friendly  intercourse,  and  even  more 
as  a  barrier  against  hostile  Asiatic  invasion. 

II.     GREECE   TYPICAL  OF  EUROPE. 

"  The  Greeks  are  moderns.  .  .  .  Ptah-hotep  [§  30]  or  Ezekiel  could  not 
move  in  modern  society.  Aristotle  or  Menander  [§§  207,  255]  in  all  moral 
and  social  questions  would  at  once  find  their  way,  and  enjoy  even  our 
poetiy  and  fiction.  Even  the  medieval  baron  would  feel  vastly  more  out 
of  place  among  us  than  would  an  intelligent  Greek." — Mahaffy. 


78  INTRODUCTORY   SURVEY.  [§82 

82.  "The  Most  European  of  European  Lands." — Hellas,  or 
Greece,  meant  not  European  Greece  alone,  but  all  the  lands  of 
the  "  Hellenes,"  as  the  Greeks  called  themselves.  This  in- 
cluded (a)  the  peninsula  in  Europe,  together  with  the  shores 
and  islands  of  the  Aegean ;  and  (b)  colonial  Greece,  that  is,  the 
Greeks  on 'the  Black  Sea  on  the  east,  and  Greek  Sicily  and 
southern  Italy  on  the  west,  besides  scattered  patches  elsewhere 
along  the  Mediterranean. 

Still,  the  central  peninsula  remained  the  heart  of  Hellas  in 
culture,  as  in  geography.  Omitting  Epirus  and  Thessaly,  which 
were  not  properly  Greek  in  character  or  history,  its  area  is 
less  than  a  quarter  that  of  the  state  of  New  York.  But  in  this 
little  district  are  concentrated  in  miniature  all  the  character- 
istic traits  of  European  geography  (§  81)  ;  and  surely  it  is  no 
mere  coincidence  that  the  tirst  home  of  typical  European 
culture  should  have  been  this  "  most  European  of  European 
lands." 

83.  Special  Geographical  Features  and  Their  Influence.  —  Five 
controlling  factors  deserve  special  mention :  the  breaking  up 
into  small  districts  ;  the  sea  roads  ;  the  incitement  to  trade ; 
the  vicinity  of  the  open  side  to  Eastern  civilization;  the 
moderation  and  beauty  of  nature. 

a.  The  islands  and  patches  of  Greek  settlements  on  distant 
coasts  were  of  course  so  many  distinct  divisions ;  and  even 
little  Greece  proper  counted  over  twenty  geographical  units, 
each  encompassed  by  its  sea  moats  and  mountain  walls.  Some 
of  these  divisions  were  about  as  large  as  an  American  town- 
ship, and  the  larger  ones  (except  Thessaly  and  Epirus)  were 
only  seven  or  eight  times  that  size. 

b.  Isolated  mountainous  tribes  are  always  rude  and  conserva- 
tive ;  but  from  such  tendencies  Greece  was  saved  by  the  sea. 
Her  mountains,  it  is  true,  with  their  many  passes,  were  "  guar- 
dians of  liberty"  rather  than  hostile  barriers;  but  it  was  the 
sea  that  really  made  friendly  intercourse  possible  on  a  large 
scale,  and  that  brought  Athens  as  closely  into  touch  with  Mile- 


§83]  GREECE  TYPICAL  OF  EUROPE.  79 

tus  (in.  Asia)  as  with  Sparta  or  Olympia.  This  value  of  the 
sea,  too,  held  good  for  neighboring  parts  of  "  European  Greece  " 
itself,  which,  with  less  area  than  Portugal,  has  a  longer  coast- 
line than  all  the  Spanish  peninsula.  The  very  heart  of  the 
^'land  is  broken  into  islands  and  promontories,  so  that  it  is 
hard  to  find  a  spot  distant  from  the  coast  more  than  thirty 
miles.  Only  two  divisions  failed  to  touch  the  sea,  and  they 
were  notoriously  backward  and  unimportant. 

c.  Certain  products  made  intercourse  exceedingly  desirable, 
and  invited  to  wider  travel.  The  mountain  slopes  in  some 
parts,  as  in  Attica,  grew  wine  and  oil  better  than  grain.  Wine 
and  oil  —  much  value  in  little  space  —  were  especially  suited 
for  commerce ;  and  with  their  limited  food  supply,  if  population 
was  to  increase,  the  people  in  such  districts  were  driven  to 
trade.  Now,  seafaring  traders,  exchanging  commodities,  are 
prone  to  exchange  ideas  also ;  and  thus  the  maritime  Greeks 
became  innovators  centuries  before  Paul  commended  them  for 
"  always  seeking  some  new  thing." 

d.  These  early  seekers  found  valuable  new  things  within 
easy  reach.  Fortunately,  this  most  European  of  all  European 
lands  lay  nearest  of  all  Europe  to  the  old  civilization  of  Asia. 
Moreover,  it  faced  this  civilized  East  rather  than  the  barbarous 
West.  On  the  side  toward  Italy,  the  coast  is  cliff  or  marsh, 
with  only  three  or  four  good  harbors  the  whole  length ;  but  on 
the  east  the  whole  line  is  broken  by  countless  deep,  inviting 
bays,  from  whose  mouths,  too,  chains  of  tempting  islands  lead 
on  and  on,  so  that  in  clear  weather  the  mariner  may  cross  the 
Aegean  without  losing  sight  of  land. 

e.  Most  important  of  all,  perhaps,  was  the  element  of  diver- 
sity. A  great  Oriental  state  found  its  one  dominant  life  prin- 
ciple in  some  mighty  river ;  it  spread  over  vast  plains,  and  was 
bounded  by  terrible  immensities  of  desolate  deserts.  Greece 
contained  no  navigable  river,  and,  except  in  Thessaly,  no  plains 
of  consequence.  It  was  a  land  of  marvelously  varied  sea  and 
mountain.  This  variety,  and  the  moderation  of  the  natural 
features,  found  a  counterpart  in  the  versatile  genius  of  the 


80  INTRODUCTORY  SURVEY.  [§84 

people,  in  their  originality,  and  in  their  lively  imagination; 
while  the  beauty  of  intermingled  hill  and  sunlit  sea,  the  exhil- 
arating air,  and  the  soft  splendor  of  the  radiant  sky,  helped  to 
make  their  intense  joy  in  life. 

Thus  in  their  little  peninsula  the  Greeks  produced  many 
varieties  of  society,  side  by  side.  They  inquired  fearlessly 
into  all  secrets,  natural  and  supernatural,  instead  of  abasing 
themselves  in  Oriental  awe;  they  had  no  controlling  priest- 
hood; and  they  never  submitted  long  to  arbitrary  government. 
Above  all  other  peoples,  too,  they  developed  a  passion  for  the 
beautiful  and  a  sense  of  harmony  and  proportion:  the  same 
word  stood  to  them  for  the  good  and  the  beautiful;  and  temper- 
ance, or  moderation,  became  their  ideal  virtue. 

84.  A  Problem:  the  Land  or  the  People? — Was  the  work  of 
Greece  in  history  the  result  of  Greek  genius  or  of  these  geo- 
graphical conditions  ?  As  early  as  the  year  2000  b.c.  the  islands 
and  coasts  of  the  Aegean  were  peopled  by  a  variety  of  tribes. 
Some  of  these  were  "  the  stuff  of  which  the  Greeks  were  after- 
ward made."  Some,  so  far  as  we  can  tell,  were  wholly  alien, 
like  the  Phoenicians  and  the  Etruscans.  The  great  body  were 
allied  to  the  Latins  on  the  west,  to  the  Phrygians,  Lycians,  and 
Carians  on  the  east,  and  to  the  Thracians  and  Macedonians  on 
the  north.  Nature  and  history  gradually  differentiated  those 
tribes  that  we  call  Greeks  from  these  neighbors,  of  whom  they 
seem  to  have  been  at  first  only  a  part.  So  some  writers  make 
the  land  everything,  and  speak  as  if  even  Homer  were  "  only  a 
natural  product  of  the  smiling  Ionian  skies.''  But  those  same 
skies,  in  the  three  thousand  years  since,  .have  produced  no 
second  Homer;  and  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  Sennacherib's 
Assyrians,  for  instance,  if  transplanted  to  Greece,  would  have 
been  made  into  Greeks. 

The  question,  of  course,  goes  to  the  bottom  of  all  history. 
About  all  we  can  say  is,  that  the  result  was  due  to  land  and 
people,  and  to  outside  history.     Says  Freeman :   "  Neither  the 


§84]  GREECE   TYPICAL   OF  EUROPE.  81 

Greeks  in  any  other  land,  nor  any  other  people  in  Greece,  would 
have  been  what  the  Greeks  in  Greece  actually  were  " ;  nor,  we 
may  add,  the  same  people  in  the  same  land  at  a  later  and  less 
plastic  stage,  or  with  different  influences  from  without.  It  was 
an  instance  of  good  seed  falling  upon  good  ground  under  favor- 
able conditions  of  time  and  history ;  but,  to  read  history  truly, 
we  must  note  that  a  larger  portion  of  the  same  seed  seems  to 
have  gone  to  waste  in  the  regions  round  about. 


For  Further  Reading.  —  The  matters  dealt  with  in  this  chapter  are 
discussed  in  the  opening  pages  of  all  standard  histories  of  Greece.  For 
the  geography,  see,  especially,  Curtius,  I.  9-25  ;  Abbott,  I.  1-23 ;  or 
Holm,  I.  24-30. 

In  these  reference  lists,  standard  works  are  referred  to  only  by  authors 
(where  there  is  no  danger  of  ambiguity)  or  by  abbreviated  titles.  Full 
titles,  with  dates,  prices,  and  publishers,  are  given  in  the  classified  bibli- 
ographies in  the  Appendix. 


CHAPTER   II. 

PREHISTORIC   GREECE  — TO   1000   B.C. 

I.    SOURCES   OF  INFORMATION. 

85.  Homer  and  his  Age.  —  Writing  of  any  kind  came  late  in 
Greece.  Until  recently  our  vague  knowledge  of  early  culture 
there  was  based  on  the  Homeric  poems,  which  were  handed 
down  orally  from  generation  to  generation  for  some  centuries 
before  they  were  put  into  manuscript.  Homer's  Iliad  describes 
part  of  the  siege  of  Troy  by  the  Greeks,  to  recover  the  beauti- 
ful Helen,  whom  a  Trojan  prince  had  carried  off.  The  Odyssey 
narrates  the  wanderings  of  one  of  the  heroes  in  the  return  from 
the  war.  Now,  the  wars  and  the  heroes  may  be  pure  fiction, 
or  the  story  may  be  based  upon  an  attempt  of  the  Greeks  to 
punish  pirates  from  Asia ;  but,  in  either  case,  the  poet's  pic- 
tures of  society  must  have  truth  in  them.     In  rude  ages  a  bard 

may  invent  stories,  but  not  a  soci- 
ety. As  has  been  well  said,  what 
such  a  ^oet  tells  us  as  history  is  apt 
to  be  false,  but  what  he  mentioins 
incidentally  is  sure  to  be  history. 
The  poems  were  composed  about 
1000  B.C.  They  claim  to  describe 
events  a  century  or  two  earlier,  but 
no  doubt  they  paint  that  past  in 
colors  true  for  their  own  day. 

86.  Archaeology  confirms  Homer, 

but    also    reveals    Earlier    Ages. — 

Greece,  however,  had  possessed  a 

Bronze  Pitcher  from       much  earlier  life,  of  which  Homer 

and    the    historic    Greeks    never 


§  86]  SOURCES   OF  INFORMATION.  83 

dreamed,  hut  of  which  we  are  now  learning  from  another 
source.  The  remains  buried  in  the  soil  were  neglected 
strangely  by  students  of  Greek  history  long  after  the  study 
of  such  objects  had  disclosed  many  wonders  in  Asia;  but  in 
1870  Dr.  Schliemanu  turned  to  this  kind  of  investigation  in 
order  to  confirm  Homer.  The  excavations  since  that  time 
have  done  this,  but  they  have  also  opened  up  a  thousand  years 
of  older  culture.  Two  incidents  in  this  exploration  we  will 
note. 

a.  Homer  places  the  capital  of  Agamemnon,  leader  of  all  the 
Greeks,  in  Argolis  at  Mycenae,  "  rich  in  gold."  Here,  in  1876, 
Schliemann  uncovered  remains  of  an  ancient  city,  with  peculiar 
massive  ("Cyclopean")   walls.     Within  were  found  a  curious 


Bronze  Dagger  from  Mycenae,  inlaid  with  gold 


group  of  tombs,  where  (to  use  the  brilliant  picture  of  Walter 
Pater's  Greek  Studies)  lay  in  state  rudely  embalmed  bodies  of 
ancient  kings  — 

"in  the  splendor  of  their  crowns  and  breastplates  of  embossed  plate  of 
gold ;  their  swords  studded  with  golden  imagery  ;  their  faces  covered 
strangely  in  golden  masks.  The  very  floor  of  one  tomb  was  thick  with 
gold  dust  —  the  heavy  gilding  from  some  perished  kingly  vestment;  in 
another  was  a  downfall  of  golden  leaves  and  flowers ;  and  amid  this  pro- 
fusion of  fine  fragments  were  rings,  bracelets,  smaller  crowns,  as  for  chil- 
dren,i  dainty  butterflies  for  ornaments,  and  that  golden  flower  on  a  silver 
stalk  —  all  of  pure,  soft  gold  unhardened  by  alloy,  the  delicate  films  of 

1  Mr.  Pater's  "as  for  children"  gives  a  wrong  impression.  These  small 
ornaments  probably  were  made  specially  for  the  dead,  and  were  therefore 
made  small  for  economy— just  as  the  Chinese  use  paper  symbols,  instead  of 
the  older  real  funeral  money,  to  bury  with  their  dead.  Such  use  of  diminutive 
imitations  is  wide-spread  in  the  funeral-customs  of  early  peoples. 


84  PREHISTORIC   GREECE  — TO   1000  B.C.  [§  86 

which  one  must  touch  but  lightly,  yet  twisted  and  beaten,  by  hand  and 
hammer,  into  wavy,  spiral  relief." 

One  tomb,  with  three  female  bodies,  contained  eight  hundred 
and  seventy  gold  objects,  besides  vast  multitudes  of  very  small 
ornaments  and  countless  gold  beads  and  pieces  of  beaten  gold. 
In  another,  five  bodies  were  "literally  smothered  in  jewels"; 
and,  with  all  this  ornament,  there  were  skillfully  wrought, 
curiously  inlaid  weapons  for  the  dead,  with  whetstones  to 
keep  them  keen,  and  graceful  vases  of  marble  and  alabaster 
carved  with  delicate  forms,  to  hold  the  funeral  food  and  wine ; 
while  near  the  entrance  lay  other  bodies,  perhaps  of  slaves  or 
captives  who  had  been  offered  in  sacrifice. 

It  is  true  these  particular  remains  belong  to  a  period  long 
before  that  celebrated  by  Homer,  but  no  doubt  in  the  poet's 
time  a  like  society  was  to  be  found  in  parts  of  Greece ;  after 
these  discoveries,  the  Homeric  pictures  of  royal  palaces  (Odys- 
sey, vii.  84  ff.)  adorned  with  friezes  of  glittering  blue  glass,  the 
walls  flashing  with  bronze  and  gleaming  with  plated  gold,  the 
heroes  and  their  guests  feasting  through  the  night,  from  gold 
vessels,  in  halls  lighted  by  torches  held  on  massive  golden 
statues,  no  longer  seem  poetic  exaggerations. 

b.  In  1870  Dr.  Schliemann  began  his  first  excavations  at  a 
little  village  in  the  Troad,  three  miles  from  the  shore,  where 
tradition  had  always  placed  the  scene  of  the  Iliad.  These 
explorations  continued  more  than  twenty  years,  and  disclosed 
nine  distinct  layers  of  debris  —  each  layer  the  remains  of  a 
separate  settlement.  The  oldest,  on  native  rock  some  fifty  feet 
below  the  present  surface,  was  a  rude  village  of  indefinite  an- 
tiquity. The  second  was  thought  by  Dr.  Schliemann  to  be 
Homer's  Troy.  It  showed  powerful  walls,  a  citadel  that  had 
been  destroyed  by  fire,  and  a  civilization  marked  by  bronze 
weapons  and  gold  ornaments.  We  know  now  that  this  city 
passed  away  about  2500  b.c,  so  that  no  doubt  the  very  mem- 
ory of  its  civilization  had  perished  before  the  real  Troy  was 
built.  Above  it  came  the  remains  of  three  successive  inferior 
settlements,  and  then  —  the  sixth  layer  from  the  bottom  —  a 


§86] 


SOURCES   OF  INFOEMATION. 


85 


much  larger  and  liner  city,  which  had  perished  in  a  hostile 
conflagration  some  eleven  or  twelve  hundred  years  B.C.  Exten- 
sive explorations  in  the  year  1893,  after  Schliemann's  death, 


The  Gate  of  the  Lions  at  Mycenae. 

finally  proved  this  sixth  city  to  be  the  Troy  of  Homer, 
with  remarkable  correspondence  in  detail  to  the  picture  in 
the  Iliad} 


1  Above  this  came  an  archaic  Greek  city,  a  magnificent  city  of  Alexander's 
age,  a  Roman  city,  and,  finally,  the  squalid  Turkish  village  of  to-day. 


86  PREHISTORIC   GREECE— TO   1000  B.C.  [§87 

The  impressive  fact,  however,  was,  not  the  confirmation  of 
Homer's  story,  but  rather  that  not  even  a  shadowy  tradition 
of  this  older  culture  of  Schliemann's  Troy  survived  to  be  sung 
by  any  poet  of  a  later  day.  Men  began  to  see  that  the  Greeks 
were  not  so  young  as  our  former  ignorance  had  taught,  but 
that  "obscure  millenniums  preceded  the  sudden  bloom"  of  their 
historic  life.    A  new  interest  led  to  important  results  (§§  87, 88). 

For  Further  Reading.  —  Tsountas  and  Manatt's  Mycenaean  Age^ 
or  Schuchhardt's  SchliemanrCs  Excavations. 


II.     TWO   PREHISTORIC   CIVILIZATIONS. 

87.  Mycenaean  Culture.' — Excavations  at  many  places  on  the 
coasts  and  islands  of  the  eastern  Mediterranean  prove  now  that 
this  early  civilization  reached  from  Sardinia  to  Cyprus,  and 
that  it  was  indigenous  in  Greece.  Steady  progress  appears, 
from  rude  stone  implements  and  crude  carvings,  through  many 
stages,  up  to  magnificent  bronze  work  and  highly  developed 
art.  This  was  the  slow  work  of  the  dark-skinned,  long-headed 
people  of  Southern  Europe  (§§8  and  9)  between  2500  and  1500 
B.C.;  and  the  culture  seems  to  have  been  helped  to  quicker 
bloom  by  contact  with  Phoenicians.  These  adventurers  bar- 
tered with  the  ruder  natives,  for  centuries  perhaps,  much  as 
English  traders  did  two  hundred  years  ago  with  American 
Indians,  tempting  their  ignorant  cupidity  with  strange  wares 

1  The  discoveries  of  the  years  1896-1900,  especially  the  last  of  these  years, 
have  made  it  necessary  to  recast  completely  the  older  ideas  of  primitive  Greece. 
The  Quarterly  Review,  July,  1901,  says  of  the  revolution  in  classical  scholarship 
wrought  in  1900-1901:  "The  altered  attitude  is  so  clearly  marked,  the  influ- 
ence so  fundamental  and  wide  reaching,  that,  to  find  adequate  parallel,  we 
must  look  back  to  the  day  of  the  Renaissance." 

The  literature  of  these  years  (at  the  publication  of  this  volume)  is  still 
mainly  in  special  "  Journals."  Ridgeway's  Early  Age  of  Greece  and  Hall's 
Oldest  Civilization  in  Greece  (both  of  1901)  sum  up  results  in  book  form,  but 
they  are  books  for  critical  scholars  only.  Advanced  students  who  have  access 
to  The  Quarterly  will  find  an  excellent  survey  in  the  article  quoted  above. 
Professor  Manatt  reviews  and  criticises  Ridgeway,  in  an  interesting  article  in 
the  New  York  Independent,  Oct.  31,  1901. 


§  87]  MYCENAEAN  AND  ACHAEAN  CULTURE.  87 

of  small  value,  and  counting  it  best  gain  of  all  if  they  could 
lure  curious  maidens  on  board  their  black  ships  for  distant 
slave  markets.^ 

In  return,  however,  the  strangers  made  many  an  unconscious 
payment.  Language  shows  that  they  gave  to  the  Greeks  the 
names  (and  so,  no  doubt,  the  use)  of  linen,  myrrh,  cinnamon, 
frankincense,  soap,  lyres,  wine  jars,  cosmetics,  and  writing  tab- 
lets. The  Greek  alphabet  itself  is  Phoenician,  without  ques- 
tion.^ The  metal  work  found  in  the  tombs  is  often  Phoenician 
or  Egyptian.  The  smelting  of  metals  and  use  of  bronze,  and 
the  substitution  of  fine  wheel-made  pottery  for  the  ruder  hand- 
made article,  may  have  come  from  the  same  source.  Indeed, 
it  would  not  be  strange  if  sometimes  —  as  Greek  legends  so 
delight  to  tell — wealthy  Phoenician  exiles  or  adventurers  act- 
ually established  themselves  as  god-descended  monarchs  in 
gilded  palaces  on  high-lying  citadels,  to  i-ule  and  civilize  the 
Greek  tribesmen  clustered  about  the  foot  of  the  castle  hill. 

On  the  whole,  however,  scholars  to-day  refuse  to  believe  that 
the  European  civilization  was  borrowed  in  its  essential  ele- 
ments, or  that  the  Orient  did  more  than  afford  the  Greeks  a 
few  hints.  Certainly  the  lively  Hellenes  were  not  slavish  imi- 
tators ;  and  these  same  early  remains  show  that  they  at  once 
made  their  own,  and  improved  upon,  whatever  the  strangers 
brought  them. 

But  this  Mycenaean  culture  is  not  that  of  which  Homer  tells. 
These  earlier  Greeks  buried  their  dead,  worshiped  ancestors, 
used  no  iron,  and  lived  frugally  on  fish  and  vegetable  diet. 
Homer's  Greeks  burn  their  dead;  worship  no  ancestors,  but  adore 
a  Sun  God ;  use  iron  swords ;  and  feast  all  night  mightily  on 
whole  roast  oxen.  So,  too,  in  dress,  manners,  and  personal 
appearance,  so  far  as  we  can  tell,  the  two  are  widely  different. 


1  Herodotus,  book  i.  ch.  i.,  preserves  traditions  of  such  trade  and  piracy. 
Read  also  the  picture  in  the  Odyssey,  xv.  403-484. 

2  The  brilliant  discoveries  of  Mr.  Arthur  Evans  in  Crete  show  that  the 
Greeks  there  had  created  a  crude  alphabet  of  their  own  before  the  Phoeni- 
cian was  introduced.    Cf.  §  58. 


88 


PREHISTORIC   GREECE  — TO   1000   B.C. 


[§88 


Still,  from  lack  of  any  other  theory,  scholars  have  continued, 
for  the  most  part,  to  regard  the  culture  pictured  by  Homer  and 
that  revealed  in  the  older  remains,  as  two  stages  in  one  develop- 
ment or  as  two  views  of  the  same  culture ;  and  the  Mycenaean 
civilization  has  usually  been  known  also  as  Achaean,  from  the 
name  Homer  uses  for  his  Greeks.  This,  however,  is  simply  to 
ignore  the  many  striking  contradictions;  and  recently  Pro- 
fessor Ridgeway  (Early  Age  of  Greece,  1901  a.d.)  has  suggested 
an  hypothesis  which  promises  to  straighten  out  the  maze.  The 
new  theory  is  not  yet  established  thoroughly,  but  it  has  much 
to  recommend  it  (§  88). 


The  "Vaphio  Cups":  Scinches  high;  8  ounces  each.  Found  in  1889,  and 
dating  back  at  least  to  1200  b.c.  Dr.  Schuchhardt  declares  them  "  unrivaled 
for  originality  of  design  and  delicacy  of  execution,  except  perhaps  by  the 
finest  goldsmith  work  of  the  Italian  Renaissance." 


88.  Achaean  Culture.  —  About  1500  b.c,  in  Central  Europe 
there  had  grown  up  an  independent  civilization ;  it  was  ruder 
than  that  of  the  South,  but  the  people  were  more  vigorous  and 
were  armed  with  iron, — perhaps  at  first,  through  some  ha^y 
accident,  by  the  discovery  of  iron,  free  so  as  not  to  need 
smelting.  This  culture  has  been  named  Hallstatt,  from  a 
place  in  the  Alps  where  its  remains  abound.  Professor  Ridge- 
way claims  to  prove  that  it  corresponds,  even  in  minute  details, 
with  the  culture  Homer  ascribes  to  his  Achaean  chiefs,  and 
argues  forcefully  that  about  1300  b.c.  bands  of  these  fair- 
haired,  blue-eyed,  ox-eating  warriors  from  the  North,  drawn  by 
the  splendor  and  riches  of  the  Mycenaean  South,  must  have 


88] 


MYCENAEAN   AND  ACHAEAN   CULTURE. 


89 


mi  mMj 


j-M  -  ( 


\^ 


N> 


^..;-^;. 


90  PREHISTORIC   GREECE  — TO   1000  B.C.  [§89 

broken  into  Greece,  as  men  of  the  North  so  many  times  since 
into  Southern  Europe.  These  mighty-limbed  strangers,  armed 
with  long  iron  swords,  easily  established  themselves  among  the 
short,  dark,  bronze- weaponed  natives,  dwelt  in  their  cities,  be- 
came their  chiefs,  married  their  women,  and  possessed  their 
wealth.  For  a  time  the  older  culture  was  overridden  by  the 
practices  and  ideas  of  these  semi-barbaric  Achaeans;  but  grad- 
ually the  two  civilizations  blended,  the  fair-skinned  invaders 
adopted  the  native  language,  and  after  a  while  they  disappeared 
in  the  native  population  —  as  has  happened  to  all  northern 
invaders  in  southern  lands.  Homer  tells  us  mainly  of  the 
Achaeans,  but  the  older  society  persisted,  no  doubt,  and  was 
again,  in  modified  form,  to  come  to  the  surface.  Even  Homer 
seems  to  show  some  mixture  of  customs  as  early  as  his  day. 

III.     ECONOMIC   SOCIETY. 

89.  A  Simple  Society.  —  No  doubt  we  are  liable  to  exaggerate 
the  "golden"  side  of  the  Homeric  Age.  The  poet  naturally 
dwelt  upon  the  deeds  and  homes  of  heroes,  so  that  sometimes 
we  call  the  age  "  Heroic  " ;  but  this  was  only  a  small  part  of 
Greek  life  after  all,  and,  as  a  whole,  society  was  primitive  and 
manners  were  harsh.  The  culture  of  Mycenae  culminated  only 
at  a  few  points  on  the  coast,  and  Homer  himself,  if  we  look 
close,  shows  that  wealthy  princes  were  rare  even  among  his 
kings.  The  son  of  Odysseus,  astounded  by  the  splendor  of 
Menelaus'  palace,  with  its  "  gleam  as  of  sun  and  moon,"  whis- 
pers to  his  companion  (Odyssey,  iv.  70)  :  — 

"  Mark  the  flashing  of  bronze  through  the  echoing  halls,  and  the  flash- 
ing of  gold  and  of  amber  and  of  silver  and  of  ivory.  Such  like,  methinks, 
is  the  court  of  Olympian  Zeus.  .  .  .     Wonder  comes  over  me  as  I  look." 

The  mighty  Odysseus  had  built  his  palace  with  his  own  hands, — 
"  a  rude  farmhouse,  where  swine  wallow  in  the  court";  and  the 
one  petty  island  in  which  he  was  head-king  held  scores  of 
poorer  kings.^ 

1  See  the  picture  of  the  princess  Nausicaa,  Odyssey,  vi.  20-100. 


§91]  THE   TRIBE  — UNITS  AND  TIES.  91 

90.  Occupations  and  Classes.  —  Industry  was  still  mainly 
agricultural.  The  mass  of  the  people  were  small  farmers, 
though  their  houses  were  grouped  in  compact  settlements. 
Even  the  kings  tilled  their  larger  farm.s,  in  part  at  least,  with 
their  own  hands.  Slaves  were  few,  except  in  the  houses  of  the 
greater  chiefs.  There  had  appeared,  however,  a  class  of  mis- 
erable landless  freemen,  who  hired  themselves  to  the  farmers. 
When  the  ghost  of  Achilles  wishes  to  name  to  Odysseus  the 
most  unhappy  lot  among  mortals,  he  selects  that  of  the  hired 
servant  (§  143)  ;  and  the  poet  Hesiod  (800  b.c),  himself  of  the 
farmer  class  and  feeling  keenly  for  its  woes,  has  no  pity  for 
these  laborers,  but  advises  the  farmer  to  turn  them  out  to  shift 
for  themselves  as  winter  comes  on.  Highly  honored  artisans 
and  smiths  were  found  among  the  retainers  of  the  greater 
chiefs.  A  separate  class  of  traders  had  not  arisen.  The  chiefs, 
in  the  intervals  of  farm  labor,  varied  their  profits  by  trading 
expeditions,  or  by  piracy  on  sea  or  land.  Telemachus,  son  of 
Odysseus,  is  asked  (Odyssey,  iii.  60-70),  evidently  without 
offense  intended  or  received,  whether  he  comes  as  a  pirate  or 
as  a  peaceful  trader. 

IV.     THE   TRIBE  — UNITS  AND  TIES.i 

91.  The  Clan.  — In  early  times  the  lowest  political  unit  in 
Greek  society  was  a  clan,  or  gens.  Each  gens,  indeed,  was  a 
kind  of  family,  containing  several  such  families  as  we  have, 
and  ranging  in  size  from  a  score,  perhaps,  to  many  score  of 
members.  The  nearest  descendant  of  the  forefather  of  the 
clan,  counting  from  oldest  son  to  oldest  son,  was  the  clan  elder, 
or  "  king.'^     The  two  bonds  of  union  were  blood  and  worship  — 

1  Some  peculiar  institutions  of  early  society  colored  later  Greek  history  to 
a  marked  degree.  The  more  important  of  these  have  to  he  studied  mostly  in 
their  fragmentary  survivals  in  the  later  history,  and  hy  comparing  such  re- 
mains with  the  customs  of  savage  peoples  of  the  present  day.  Fortunately, 
however,  some  of  the  later  Greeks  described  Greek  tribal  society  as  it  existed 
in  their  time  in  the  little-changed,  backward  tribes  of  northern  and  western 
Greece  (see  especially  Thucydides,  1.  2-8). 


92  PREHISTORIC   GREECE— TO   1000  B.C.  [§92, 

a  common  descent  and  a  common  religion ;  and  these  two  were 
really  one,  for  the  clan  religion  was  a  worship  of  clan  ancestors. 
If  provided  with  pleasing  periodic  meals  and  invoked  with 
magic  formulas  (so  the  belief  ran),  the  powerful  ghosts  of  the 
ancient  clan  elders  would  continue  to  aid  their  descendants.^ 

This  worship  was  secret,  and  hostile  to  all  outside  the  clan. 
The  altar  was  the  clan  tomb,  and  the  only  legitimate  priest 
was  the  clan  elder.  For  a  non-clansman  even  to  see  the  wor- 
ship was  to  defile  it;  for  him  to  learn  the  sacred  formulas  was 
to  secure  power  over  the  gods.  It  followed  that  marriage  be- 
came a  "religious"  act.  The  woman  had  to  renounce  her  own 
gods,  and  to  be  accepted  by  the  gods  of  her  husband  into  their 
clan.^  After  that,  she  and  her  future  children  were  in  law  and 
in  religion  no  longer  related  to  her  father  and  his  clan ;  rela- 
tionship and  inheritance  of  property  came  through  males  only. 

In  like  manner  in  later  times,  as  the  families  of  the  clan  more  and 
more  became  distinct  units,  each  came  to  have  its  separate  family  wor- 
ship. The  father  was  the  priest  of  the  Hearth,  or  family  altar,  near 
which  were  grouped  the  Penates,  or  images  of  ancestors.  There,  before 
each  meal,  was  poured  out  the  libation,  and  there  blessings  were  invoked. 
Piety  consisted  in  fulfilling  strictly  these  obligations  to  the  ancestral 
deities.  The  family  tomb  anciently  was  near  the  house,  "so  that  the 
sons,"  says  Euripides,  "in  entering  and  leaving  their  dwelling,  might 
always  meet  their  fathers  and  invoke  them." 

92.  Larger  Units :  Phratry  and  Tribe.  —  Long  before  history 
began,  clans  united  into  larger  units.      In  barbarous  society 


1  The  food  was  actually  meant  for  the  ghost.  Milk  and  wine  were  poured 
into  a  hollow  in  the  ground,  with  sacred  formulas  inviting  tlie  dead  to  eat; 
and  it  was  the  grossest  impiety  for  any  mortal  to  touch  the  food  left  at  the 
grave.  Travelers  describe  similar  practices  among  primitive  peoples  to-day. 
A  Papuan  chief  prays:  "Compassionate  Father!  Here  is  food  for  you.  Eat 
it,  and  be  kind  to  us!  "  Turner  relates  that  in  Samoa,  at  the  evening  meal, 
the  family  priest  exclaims,  with  his  offering:  "  Here  is  ava  for  you,  O  gods! 
look  kindly  towards  this  family.  .  .  .  I^et  our  plantations  be  kept  productive : 
let  food  grow!  Here  is  ava  for  you,  O  war  gods  I  Let  this  be  a  strong  and 
numerous  people  for  you!  " 

2  Her  father,  of  course,  or  some  male  relative,  renounced  for  her,  and  gave 
her  to  the  bridegroom.    This  is  the  origin  of  "  giving  in  marriage  "  to-day. 


§94]  THE  TRIBE  — UNITS  AND  TIES.  93 

the  highest  unit  is  the  tribe.  The  clau-elder  of  the  leading 
clan  was  the  tribal  elder,  or  the  priest-king  of  the  tribe.  The 
tribe,  too,  had  a  common  worship  of  a  real  or  pretended  ances- 
tor. If  men  at  that  stage  of  progress  wished  to  combine  in  a 
friendly  way,  they  had  to  invent  some  such  bond  of  union. 
Otherwise  they  must  think  of  ea<ih  other  as  enemies.  It  is 
plain  that  in  the  larger  units  such  bonds  must  have  been 
fictitious  for  the  most  part ;  but  in  credulous,  savage  society, 
these  "legal  fictions"  come  quickly  to  have  all  the  force  of 
fact. 

Between  the  "Greek  tribe  and  the  gens  came  a  less  important 
unit,  —  the  phratry,  or  "  brotherhood  "  of  clans,  with  the  char- 
acteristics of  a  smaller  tribe. 

93.  The  Tribal  City.  —  Originally,  the  tribe  dwelt  in  its  sepa- 
rate clan-villages  in  the  vallej^s  around  some  convenient  hill- 
top. On  the  height  was  the  place  of  common  worship,  and  a 
ring  wall  turned  it  easily  into  a  citadel.  In  hilly  Greece  many 
of  these  fortified  tribal  centers  grew  up  close  together;  and 
so,  very  early,  groups  of  tribes  combined  further.  Perhaps 
one  of  a  group  would  conquer  the  others  and  compel  them  to 
demolish  their  separate  citadels  and  to  transfer  their  temples 
to  its  center.  This  was  the  way  in  which  Cecrops  and  Theseus 
are  said  to  have  founded  Athens — by  incorporating  into  one 
body  the  three  hundred  and  sixty  clan-villages  of  Attica.  In 
such  cases,  a  new  legal  fiction  set  up  a  common  city-worship, 
with  the  king  of  the  chief  tribe  for  the  city  priest-king. 
Sometimes,  of  course,  a  growing  tribe  might  enter  the  city 
stage  without  artificially  widening  its  circle ;  but  in  general, 
as  clans  federated  into  tribes,  so  tribes  federated  into  cities, 
either  peaceably  or  through  war.  The  process  seems  to  have 
been  well  under  way  in  Homeric  times. 

94.  The  City  the  Political  Limit.  —  Though  it  involves  a  digression, 
it  is  well  to  note  here  that  the  city  was  the  limit  of  political  union  among 
the  Greeks.  If  this  process  of  federation  could  have  continued,  —  or,  if 
by  conquest  and  amalgamation  the  cities  could  have  been  combined  into 


94  PREHISTORIC   GREECE  — TO    1000  B.C.  [§95 

larger  units,  they  might  have  made  a  nation-state,  like  modern  England 
or  France.  But  the  city  satisfied  the  political  ideal  of  the  Greeks.  To 
them  the  same  word  meant  "  city  "  and  "  state."  A  union  of  cities,  by 
which  any  of  them  gave  up  complete  sovereignty,  was  repugnant  to 
Greek  feeling.  One  city  might  hold  others  in  subjection  ;  but,  in  historic 
times,  it  never  admitted  their  people  to  any  kind  of  citizenship.  Nor  did 
the  subject  cities  dream  of  asking  such  a  thing.  What  they  wanted,  and 
would  never  cease  to  strive  for,  was  to  recover  their  separate  independ- 
ence. No  one  thought  of  union.  To  each  Greek,  his  city  was  his  country. 
It  followed,  through  nearly  all  Greek  history,  that  the  political  rela- 
tions of  one  city  with  another  five  miles  away  were  foreign  relations, 
as  much  as  its  dealings  with  the  king  of  Persia.  Wars,  therefore,  were 
constant  and  cruel.  The  concentration  of  interests  gave  to  each  city  a 
vivid  and  intense  life ;  but  the  division  of  Greek  power  into  so  many 
hostile  centers  made  that  life  brief. 

V.     EARLY  POLITICAL  ORGANIZATION. 

95.  The  King.^ — The  tribal  city  had  three  political  elements 
—  king,  council  of  chiefs,  and  popular  assembly.  In  these  we 
may  see  the  germs  of  later  monarchic,  aristocratic,  and  demo- 
cratic institutions.  The  kings  varied  in  authority.  In  centers 
like  Mycenae  they  seem  to  have  been  almost  absolute,  though 
even  there  they  had  no  bodyguard ;  but  in  general  they  were 
limited  strictly  by  custom  and  by  the  two  other  political  orders. 

96.  A  Council  of  Chiefs  surrounded,  aided,  and  checked  the 
king.  These  chiefs  were  originally  the  clan  elders  and  the 
members  of  the  royal  family.  Socially  they  were  the  king's 
equals ;  and  in  government  he  could  not  do  anything  in  defiance 
of  their  wish.  They  could  sometimes  elect  a  king,  when  a 
vacancy  occurred,  although  their  choice  must  have  been  limited 
usually  to  one  royal  family. 

97.  The  Folk-moot,  or  Assembly  of  Freemen,  listened  to 
plans  proposed  by  king  and  chiefs,  and  shouted  approval  or 
muttered  disapproval.  It  could  not  start  new  movements 
itself.       There   were  no  regular  meetings   and  few   spokes- 

1  Bead  Freeman's  Comparative  Politics,  144-146. 


§97]  EARLY  POLITICAL  ORGANIZATION.  95 

men,  and  the  general  reverence  for  the  chiefs  made  it  a 
daring  deed  for  a  common  man  to  brave  them ;  so  that  if  the 
chiefs  were  agreed  among  themselves,  it  must  have  been  hard 
to  keep  them  from  getting  their  way.  However,  even  in  war, 
when  the  authority  of  the  nobles  was  greatest,  the  Assembly 
had  to  be  persuaded;  it  could  not  be  ordered;  and  Homer's 
songs,  flattering  of  course  to  the  chiefs,  show  that  sometimes 
popular  opposition  did  find  expression. 

The  Greeks  in  one  council  before  Troy  break  away  to  seize  their  ships 
for  the  homeward  journey.  Odysseus  hurries  among  them,  and  by  per- 
suasion and  threats  forces  them  back  to  the  council,  until  only  Thersites 
bawls  on,  —  "Thersites,  uncontrolled  of  speech,  whose  mind  was  full  of 
words  wherewith  to  strive  against  the  chiefs  idly.''''  "Hateful  was  he  to 
Achilles  above  all,  and  to  Odysseus,  for  them  he  was  wont  to  revile.  But 
now  with  shrill  shout  he  poured  forth  his  uphraidings  even  upon  goodly 
Agamemnon  "  {Iliad,  ii.  210  ff.)-  Then  Odysseus  with  stem  rebuke  smites 
him  into  silence,  while  the  crowd  laughs.  Odysseus  carries  the  crowd  with 
him,  but  Thersites  was  a  cripple,  and  is  represented  as  ugly  and  unpopular. 
Professor  Mahaffy  comments  {Social  Life,  13)  :  "The  figure  of  Ther- 
sites seems  drawn  with  special  spite  and  venom,  as  a  satire  upon  the  first 
critics  that  rose  up  among  the  people  and  questioned  the  divine  right  of 
kings  to  do  wrong.  We  may  be  sure  the  real  Thersites,  from  whom  the 
poet  drew  his  picture,  was  a  very  different  and  a  far  more  serious  power 
in  debate  than  the  misshapen  buffoon  of  the  Iliad.  But  the  king  who  had 
been  thwarted  and  exposed  by  him  in  the  day,  would  over  his  evening 
cups  enjoy  the  poet's  travesty,  and  long  for  the  good  old  times  when  he 
could  put  down  all  impertinent  criticism  by  the  stroke  of  his  knotty  scep- 
ter. Indeed,  the  Homeric  agora  could  hardly  have  existed,  had  it  been 
so  idle  a  form  as  the  poets  represent." 

So  Professor  Freeman:  "But,  after  all,  I  think  that  the  submission 
of  the  mass  of  Achaian  freemen  to  Agamemnon  .  ,  .  has  been,  if  not 
exaggerated,  at  least  misunderstood.  It  is  not  the  submission  of  slaves, 
but  the  submission  of  children.  It  is  not  the  submission  of  men  who  wish 
to  oppose,  but  who  dare  not ;  it  is  the  submission  of  men  who  have  not  yet 
formed  the  wish  to  oppose.  .  .  .  The  real  thing  to  be  marked  is  that  there 
should  be  any  opposition  speakers  at  all."  ^ 


1  Read  Comparative  Politics,  204-207,  from  which  this  paragraph  comes. 
For  more  extreme  democratic  views,  the  advanced  student  may  consult 
Morgan's  Ancient  Society,  245-249. 


96  PREHISTORIC   GREECE  — TO   1000  B.C. 

For  Further  Reading. — Divisions  I.  and  II.:  see  footnotes.  Divisions 
III.-VI. :  Fowler's  City  State,  chs.  ii.,  iii. ;  Mahaffy's  Survey,  chs.  i.,  ii. ; 
and  Social  Life,  chs.  ii.,  iii. ;  Gardner's  New  Chapters  in  Greek  History, 
1-152  ;  Lang's  Homer  and  the  Epic.  An  excellent  single-page  discussion 
of  possible  historical  meaning  in  Greek  legends,  like  that  of  Theseus  and 
the  Minotaur,  is  given  in  Ranke's  Universal  History,  I.  119.  Advanced 
students  may  consult  Freeman's  Comparative  Politics  and  Coulanges' 
Ancient  City. 

Topics  for  Reports.  — Students  may  be  asked  to  report  upon  Homeric 
society  by  topics,  as  indicated  below,  drawing  information  from  the 
references  given,  and  seeking  others  for  themselves. 

1.   The  assembly :  Iliad,  ii.  82-402  ;  Odyssey,  iii.  138-150.        2.    Coun- 
cil of  chiefs  :  Iliad,  ii.  52-82,  87-187  ;  x.  194-250.         3.  Kings  and  chiefs : 
Iliad,    i.    75-306;    iv.    223-249,    411-418;    xii.    265-276;    xiv.  364-401. 
4.    Law  courts  (wer-geld)  :  /Ziad,  xviii.  481-511.         5.    The  gods :  absent, 
Iliad,  i.  400-430  ;  sacrifices,  ii.  403-434 ;  wounded  in  battle,  v.  315-443, 
710-909  ;  domestic  quarrels,  i.  526-611 ;  xv.  1-85  ;  see  also  iv.  1-89  ;  v.  100- 
139 ;  viii.  1-55,  315-443  ;  xii.  221-255  ;  xviii.  350-481 ;  xxi.  1-85,  296-361, 
395-525.         6.    Funerals:     slaying    of    prisoners,    Iliad,   xxiii.    1-254 
games,  xxiii.  254-897  ;  lamentations,  xxi  v.  503-702.         7.    Future  life 
Odysseus  in   Hades,   Odyssey,  xi.         8.    Treatment  of  dead   enemies 
Iliad,  xxii.   330-405.         9.    Treatment   of  captives :    Iliad,  vi.   50-75 
X.  365-500  ;  xxi.  60-124.         10.    Commerce  :  Odyssey,  i.  180-192  ;  iii.  69- 
74 ;  ix.  252-255.         11.    Position  of  woman  :   Odyssey,  i.  345-359 ;  ii.  88- 
145.         12.    Life  of  the  poor :  Odyssey,  xi.  488-490  ;  xiv.  54-70,  412-533  ; 
XV.  385-395  ;  xviii.  355-361.         13.    Life  in  a  palace  :  Odyssey,  iv.  20-80  ; 
viii.  1-255  ;  xx.  145-165  ;  vii.  75-135  ;  xvii.  264-274  ;  xxiii.  182-205 ;  vi.  21- 
118,  303-307  ;  iv.  120-140 ;  xviii.  365-385  ;  ii.  337-347  ;  xvi.  138-142  ;  xxiv. 
205-243. 


V;,  CHAPTER   III. 

FROM  THE  MIGRATIONS   TO   THE  PERSIAN  WARS. 
1000-500   B.C. 

I.    SUB-PERIODS  AND   CHARACTER. 

98.  The  Gap  in  the  Evidence.  — About  1000  b.c.  the  barbarous 
but  heavy-armed  Dorians  from  the  north  destroyed  the  old 
civilization  of  the  Peloponnesus,  then  the  most  advanced  part  of 
Hellas,  in  a  long  series  of  campaigns.^  A  long  blank  follows, 
whera  we  have  not  even  such  imperfect  guides  as  for  the 
preceding  age.  Changes  continued  through  the  obscure  cen- 
turies, but  the  details  have  forever  escaped  us.  In  a  rough 
way,  however,  we  get  at  the  general  trend  of  events  by  com- 
paring Homeric  Greece  with  the  historic  Greece  that  is  revealed 
when  the  curtain  rises  again. 

This  happens  about  650  b.c.  Prom  that  time  the  Greeks 
used  the  alphabet  freely ;  and  the  surviving  inscriptions  and 
the  fragments  of  the  lyric  poets  and  of  contemporary  accounts 
fill  out  and  correct  tradition.  The  movements  of  the  next  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years,  however,  seem  to  be  simply  a  continu- 
ation of  what  had  gone  on  in  the  preceding  four  centuries,  so 
that  the  whole  period  down  to  the  year  500  b.c.  is  best  treated 
as  a  unit. 

The  leading  facts  of  the  five  hundred  years  have  to  do  with 
(a)  the  growth  of  a  new  Hellenic  consciousness  (such  as  Homer 
never  had)  of  a  race  distinction  between  the  Greeks  and  their 

1  The  difficulties  connected  with  the  question  of  a  Dorian  invasion  are  dis- 
cussed briefly  by  Hohn,  I.  154.  The  Achaeans  seem  to  have  fought  still  in  the 
Homeric  fashion  —  the  chiefs  in  chariots,  and  their  followers  as  an  unwieldy, 
ill-armed  mob.  The  Dorians  introduced  the  use  of  heavy-armed  infantry, 
with  long  spears,  in  regular  array  and  close  ranks. 

97 


98  THE   GREEKS  — 1000  TO   500  B.C.  [§99 

neighbors;  (b)  great  migrations  and  the  expansion  of  the 
Hellenic  world ;  (c)  the  political  revolution  which  replaces  the 
old  kings  by  oligarchies,  tyrants,  and  finally  sometimes  by 
democracies ;  (d)  the  rise  of  Sparta  to  military  headship ;  (e)  the 
development  of  Athens  in  democracy  and  power;  and  (/)  the 
intellectual  awakening  and  its  new  manifestations  in  poetry 
and  philosophy.  These  movements  will  be  treated  in  separate 
sections  below. 

II.    RACES. 

99.  lonians,  Achaeans,  Dorians,  Aeolians.  —  The  oldest  inhabi- 
tants of  Greece  are  sometimes  called  Pelasgians.  In  historic 
times  they  seem  to  have  been  represented  by  the  lonians,  but 
over  southern  Greece  (§  88)  they  had  been  displaced  as  rulers 
by  the  fair  Achaeans  before  1200  b.c.  Both  "  lonians  "  and 
"  Achaeans  "  appear  on  Egyptian  monuments  of  the  fourteenth 
century  b.c.  among  the  "peoples  of  the  sea"  who  attacked 
the  Delta  at  that  time. 

Between  1000  and  800  b.c.  (§§  98,  102),  the  Achaean  pre- 
eminence in  southern  Greece  passed  to  the  invading  Dorians. 
This  people  and  the  aboriginal  lonians  of  the  unconquered  parts 
of  Hellas  were  to  be  the  two  leading  peoples  of  historic  Greece. 
Some  other  sections  of  the  race,  especially  the  people  of  western 
Greece,  were  known  as  Aeolians,  or  "  mixed "  peoples.  They 
played  a  leading  part  too  late,  as  the  Achaeans  had  played 
their  part  too  early,  for  the  brilliant  period  of  Greek  history. 

The  lonians,  at  the  opening  of  history,  held  Attica  and  the  islands  of 
the  Aegean.  Athens,  on  a  rock,  was  their  leading  city.  The  Athenians 
were  maritime,  democratic,  progressive,  artistic.  The  Dorians  had  their 
strength  in  the  southern  half  of  the  Peloponnesus.  Sparta  was  their  lead- 
ing city  —  a  military  settlement  of  conquerors,  in  a  fertile  valley,  organ- 
ized for  defense  and  ruling  over  slave  tillers  of  the  soil.  The  Spartans 
were  warlike,  aristocratic,  conservative,  practical.  There  is  a  tendency 
to  ascribe  these  characteristics  of  the  two  leading  cities  to  their  respective 
races,  and  to  class  all  lonians  as  democratic  and  progressive,  and  all 
Dorians  as  aristocratic  and  conservative  ;  but  this  distinction  holds  good 
only  within  narrow  limits.  Colonies  of  lonians  and  Dorians,  under 
changed  physical  conditions,  especially  in  Sicily  and  Italy,  exchanged 


§  100]  UNITY   OF  HELLENIC   CULTURE.  99 

these  "race"  characteristics.  On  the  whole,  Athens  was  more  nearly 
typical  of  the  lonians  than  Sparta  was  of  the  Dorians,  —  no  doubt  because 
nearly  all  lonians  had  much  the  same  physical  environment  that  Athens 
had. 

m.  WHAT  MADE  A  GREEK  A  GREEK  ? 

100.  Unity  of  Hellenic  Culture.  —  The  Iliad  does  not  make  it 
clear  whether  Homer  regarded  the  Trojans  as  Greeks  or  not ; 
apparently  he  cared  little  about  the  question.  Four  hundred 
years  later  that  question  would  have  been  a  first  consideration 
to  every  Greek.  The  forces  which,  during  these  four  centuries, 
in  the  absence  of  political  union,  gave  gradually  to  all  Hellenes 
a  oneness  of  feeling,  were  chiefly  the  following :  language  and 
literature ;  belief  in  kinship ;  and  the  Olympian  religion,  with 
its  games  and  oracles. 

a.  The  Greeks  understood  each  other's  dialects,  while  the 
men  of  other  speech  about  them  they  called  "  Barbarians,"  or 
babblers  (Bar-har-oi).  The  universal  allegiance  to  Homer 
(whose  poems  were  sung  and  recited  in  every  Greek  village  for 
centuries),  and  the  glories  of  the  later  common  literature,  made 
this  bond  of  union  more  vital. 

b.  Then  the  poets  invented  a  system  of  relationship,  through 
fabled  Ion,  Achaeus,  Dorus,  Aeolus,  —  descendants  of  a  mythic 
Hellen,  —  which  confirmed  all  Hellenes  in  their  belief  in  a 
common  blood  relationship  (§  99). 

c.  Besides  the  clan  worship  of  ancestors  and  the  city  wor- 
ship of  local  heroes,  there  was  another  religion  common  to  all 
Greeks.  This  was  originally  a  nature  worship,  such  as  most 
early  peoples  have;  but  the  poetic  imagination  of  the  Greeks 
gave  an  intense  reality  and  a  human  character  to  their  per- 
sonification of  natural  forces,  and  wove  from  this  material 
the  most  complete  and  beautiful  system  of  myths  the  world 
has  ever  known.^  The  greater  deities,  to  distinguish  them 
from  lesser  ones  and  from  the  gods  of   the  narrow  ancestor 


1  For  some  of  its  higher  meanings,  the  student  should  read  Ruskin's  Queen 
of  the  Air.  Systematic  accounts  will  be  found  in  Grote,  I.  1-87  ;  Abbott,  I. 
174-193  ;  Grant,  Age  of  Pericles,  20-26;  Gay  ley;  Guerber. 


100  THE   GREEKS  — 1000  TO  500  B.C.  [§100 

religion,  were  called  Olympian  —  from  Mount  Olympus,  whose 
cloud-capped  summit  was  once  thought  to  be  their  home. 
Three  special  features  of  this  religion  helped  to  bind  Greeks 
together  —  the  Olympic  Games,  the  Delphic  Oracle,  and  the 
various  Amphictyonies. 

To  the  great  festivals  of  some  of  the  gods,  men  flocked  from 
all  Hellas.  Especially  was  this  true  of  the  games  in  honor  of 
Zeus,  each  fourth  year,  at  Olympia  in  Elis.  The  contests  con- 
sisted of  foot  and  chariot  racing,  wrestling,  and  boxing ;  and 
the  victors,  though  they  received  only  an  olive  wreath  at 
Olympia,  were  commonly  honored  at  their  homes  with  inscrip- 
tions and  statues.  The  four-year  periods,  or  Olympiads,  be- 
came the  Greek  units  in  counting  time ;  all  events  were  dated 
from  what  was  called  the  first  recorded  Olympiad,  beginning 
in  776  B.C. 

At  Delphi  was  a  temple  of  Apollo  and  an  oracle  whose  advice 
was  sought  by  individuals  and  governments  over  all  Hellas. 
An  ancient  league  of  Greek  tribes  ,to  protect  this  temple  was 
known  as  The  Amphictyonic  League.  Smaller  amphictyonies 
(leagues  of  dwellers-round-about)  were  common  in  other  parts 
of  Greece.  They  afforded  the  only  hint  of  a  movement  in  the 
early  history  toward  a  union  of  states,  but  they  were  strictly 
religious  in  purpose.^ 

Table  of  Greater  Deities.     (Latin  names  in  parenthesisr) 

Zeus  (Jupiter),  the  supreme  god  ;  god  of  the  sky. 
Poseidon  (Neptune),  god  of  the  sea. 

Apollo^  the  sun  god  ;  god  of  wisdom,  poetry,  and  medicine. 
Ares  (Mars),  god  of  war. 

Hephaestus  (Vulcan),  god  of  fire  — the  lame  smith. 

Hermes  (Mercuiy),  god  of  the  wind ;  messenger  ;  god  of  cunning  and  wit. 
Hera  (Juno),  sister  and  wife  of  Zeus  ;  queen  of  the  sky. 
Athene  (Minerva),  goddess  of  wisdom  ;  the  female  counterpart  of  Apollo, 
as  Hera  was  of  Zeus. 

1  Good  brief  discussions  of  the  value  of  these  religious  elements  as  bonds  of 
union  are  found  in  Abbott,  II.  24-31;  Holm,  I.  227-230;  Curtius,  I.  123-128. 
Advanced  students  may  consult  Freeman's  Federal  Government,  123-143. 


§  102]  COLONIZATION.  101 

Artemis  (Diana),  goddess  of  the  moon;  goddess  of  hunting. 
Aphrodite  (Venus),  goddess  of  love. 

Demeter  (Ceres),  the  earth  goddess  —  controlling  fertility. 
Hestia  (Vesta) ,  the  deity  of  the  home  ;  goddess  of  the  hearth  fire. 


Exercise  in  Dates. — The  Second  Olympiad  began  (776  —  1x4) 
772  B.C.  The  second  year  of  the  Fourth  Olympiad  was  (776  —  3x4—  1) 
763  B.C.  What  is  our  date  for  the  fourth  year  of  the  One  Hundred  and 
First  Olympiad  ?     What  were  the  Greek  dates  for  371,  404,  and  490  b.c. 

Special  Topics.  —  1.  The  Delphic  Oracle  and  its  famous  utterances 
(Herodotus,  ii.  54-57  ;  Curtius,  II.  10-55  ;  Grote,  I.  65-69  ;  Grant,  20-26; 
Holm,  I.  230-236).  2.  Herodotus'  account  of  the  oracle  of  Dodona,  and 
the  attempt  to  rationalize  the  dove  (Herodotus,  ii.  54).  3.  The  Olympic 
Games  (Gardner,  New  Chapters,  273-302  ;  Curtius,  II.  27-35 ;  Grote,  IV. 
75-79;  Holm,  I.  236-241;  Grant,  26-33).  4.  Other  leading  religious 
festivals  (Curtius,  II.  27-35 ;  Grote,  IV.  79-98 ;  Holm,  I.  241-242). 

IV.    THE   MAP:    COLONIZATION. 
A.   First  Period,  Readjustments  in  the  Aegean, 

TO  900  B.C. 

101.  Cause  and  General  Character.  —  The  immediate  cause  of 
the  first  great  movements  of  population  in  Greece  that  we  can 
trace  was  the  Dorian  invasion  (§  98).  These  conquerors  and 
the  dispossessed  Achaeans,  who  were  seeking  new  homes, 
jostled  other  tribes  into  motion  over  all  the  peninsula.  The 
age  was  one  of  rearrangements  and  of  moderate  expansion  into 
the  Aegean. 

102.  Results  to  Civilization  in  General.  —  The  Dorian  conquest 
in  itself  must  have  seemed  a  blow  to  civilization.  The  ancient 
glories  of  the  Peloponnesus  were  trampled  out,  and  that  penin- 
sula lost  forever  its  leadership  in  Hellenic  culture.  But  other 
districts,  especially  Attica,  strengthened  themselves  by  incor- 
porating the  more  enterprising  of  the  fleeing  peoples ;  and  fugi- 
tives carried  the  seeds  of  Greek  civilization  to  the  islands  and 
coasts  of  the  Aegean.  Some  of  these  districts  were  partly 
Greek  before,  but  now  important  Hellenic  reenforcements 
arrived,  and  the  old  non-Hellenic  elements  were  driven  out. 


102  THE   GREEKS  — 1000  TO   500   B.C.  [§  103 

103.  Political  Results.  —  In  nearly  all  Greece  it  came  to  pass 
that  a  conquering  aristocracy  ruled  a  conquered  peasantry, 
usually  of  different  race.  Thus  a  basis  was  laid  for  the  bitter 
class  struggles  within  Greek  cities  in  later  times. 

104.  The  Hellenizing  of  the  Asiatic  Coast  of  the  Aegean.  —  One 

phase  of  the  expansion  of  Greek  culture  in  this  period  deserves 
special  mention.  This  is  the  Hellenizing  of  the  Asiatic  coast. 
A  great  body  of  Ionian  refugees,  passing  through  Attica, 
crossed  the  sea  to  the  central  coast  of  Asia  Minor.  There  they 
founded  or  conquered  twelve  great  cities,  of  which  Miletus  and 
Ephesus  were  the  most  important.  The  whole  district  took 
the  name  Ionian  and  was  united  in  a  religious  amphictyony. 
Just  to  the  north,  a  confused  mass  of  fugitives  from  central 
Greece  founded  a  group  of  twelve  Aeolian  cities  (also  with  an 
amphictyony),  while  to  the  south  was  established  a  smaller 
circle  of  Dorian  colonies. 

B.   Second  Period,  Wider  Colonization,  800-600  b.c. 

105.  Character  and  Causes.. —  The  real  territorial  expansion 
came  a  century  later.  The  movement  went  on  for  two  hun- 
dred years,  and  doubled  the  area  of  Hellas,  carrying  it  far 
beyond  its  Aegean  home.  Curiously,  this  dispersion  came  just 
when  the  Hellenes  were  growing  to  look  upon  themselves  as  a 
distinct  race  (§  98).  In  this  period  of  true  colonization  the 
colonies  were  trading  stations,  not  settlements  of  fugitives. 
They  resulted  not  from  foreign  force,  but  from  state  policy : 
one  group  to  secure  to  the  mother  city  a  monopoly  of  the  Thra- 
cian  gold  and  silver  mines ;  another  to  control  the  corn  trade 
of  southern  Russia.  Social  and  political  motives  cooperated 
with  such  aims.  The  old  cities  were  glad  to  find  a  vent  for 
their  rapidly  increasing  population,  especially  as  a  tendency  to 
class  struggles  just  at  that  time  (§  108)  made  the  presence  of 
discontented  elements  a  political  ^eril.  Sometimes,  indeed,  the 
colonists  were  a  defeated  faction  in  a  civic  conflict.  The 
mother  city,  however,  always  gave  the  sacred  fire  for  the  new 


■*$>■       Poseidon 


^     '^^  Thirioi\ 

thage)  "'^ 

<»«5 


\ 


Loofinid*         We«t 


Lonsitude  But 


j}at'iir>^^* 


Pltyc 

Di08c\)ur}a? 

S      B     A 


H. 


M'' 


OdesSM  ^ 
^    ^    ft  ^- 


iSVoo?* 


aW^ 


^-.o 


N»V, 


'CAPPAJ 


Xi^ 


"^ 


^o» 


^o     (fyrfue 


§  107]  THE   POLITICAL   REVOLUTION.  103 

city  hearth,  and  appointed  the  "  founder,"  to  establish  the  new- 
settlement  with  appropriate  religious  rites  and  to  distribute 
the  mixed  inhabitants,  who  thronged  in  from  all  sides,  into 
artificial  tribes  and  gentes,  after  the  fashion  of  Greek  society. 
The  colonists  ceased  absolutely  to  be  citizens  in  their  old  home, 
and  the  new  city  enjoyed  complete  independence.  Each  colony 
recognized  its  religious  and  social  obligations  to  its  "metropo- 
lis," but  neither  mother  nor  daughter  city  thought  of  convert- 
ing the  relation  into  a  political  union.  Corinth  for  a  time 
made  an  exception ;  that  city  did  retain  some  political  suprem- 
acy over  its  colonies.  And  Athens  in  a  later  period  adopted 
another  form  of  colonization,  of  which  we  shall  have  occasion 
to  speak  (§§  133,  190). 

106.  Distribution  of  Colonies.  —  The  map  shows  the  distribu- 
tion of  the  colonies.  To  the  east,  some  sixty  settlements 
fringed  the  Black  Sea  and  its  straits ;  on  the  west,  Sicily  be- 
came almost  wholly  Greek,  and  southern  Italy  took  the  proud 
name  of  Magna  Graecia.  The  one  city  of  Chalcis  (in  Euboea) 
founded  thirty-two  colonies  in  Thrace.  Among  the  more  im- 
portant cities  established  in  this  period  were  Syracuse  in 
Sicily,  Tarentum  in  Italy,  Corcyra  in  the  Adriatic,  Massilia 
(Marseilles)  in  Gaul,  Olynthus  in  Thrace,  Cyrene  in  Africa,  and 
Byzantium  on  the  Bosphorus.  No  one  of  the  scores  of  these 
colonies  was  an  inland  settlement. 

References  for  Further  Reading. — Oman,  ch.  vi. ;  Holm,  I.  272- 
294  ;  Abbott,  I.  chs.  iv.  and  xi.  ;  Greenidge,  36-45  ;  Curtius,  1 .  432-500. 
See  Freeman's  Greater  Greece  and  Greater  Britain  for  a  comparison  with 
modern  colonies. 

Special  Report.  —  The  method  of  founding  colonies,  illustrated  by 
the  story  of  some  particular  foundation. 

V.     THE   POLITICAL  REVOLUTION. 

107.  The  Kings  overthrown  by  the  Chiefs.  —  During  the  ob- 
scure period  the  old  "  kings  "  disappeared  from  every  Greek 
city  except  Sparta  and  Argos ;  and  in  those  the  Homeric  king- 


104  THE  GREEKS  — 1000  TO   500  B.C.  [§  108 

ship  was  modified.  Religious  feeling  determined  the  general 
character  of  the  change.  An  Homeric  king  had  had  the  triple 
functions  of  priest,  judge,  and  war  chief.  Plainly,  the  last 
could  least  safely  be  left  to  the  accident  of  birth ;  accordingly, 
it  was  this  function  that  was  first  made  elective.  Then,  as 
judicial  work  increased,  with  the  more  complex  city  life,  special 
judges  were  chosen  to  take  over  that  part  of  the  king's  work. 
The  priestly  dignity  (powerless  of  itself,  and  connected  most 
closely  with  family  descent)  was  left  longest  a  matter  of  in- 
heritance: in  some  cities  we  find  a  "  king-archon "  (basileus 
archon)  for  city  priest,  from  the  old  royal  family,  long  after 
all  other  sign  of  royalty  had  vanished ;  and  in  democratic 
Athens,  all  through  her  later  history,  the  same  title  of  king- 
archon  was  given  to  the  elected  city  priest. 

This  was  the  general  order,  then,  of  the  change  by  which  the 
rule  of  the  king  became  the  rule  of  "  the  few."  The  process 
was  gradual  and  commonly  peaceful.  The  means  and  occasion 
varied.  A  disputed  succession,  the  dying  out  of  a  royal  line,  a 
minor  or  -a  weak  king,  —  any  of  these  conditions  would  make 
it  easy  for  the  nobles  to  encroach  upon  the  royal  power.^ 

108.  The  Oligarchies  overthrown  by  the  Tyrants.  —  The  origin 
of  the  oligarchies  varied.  The  original  aristocratic  or  oli- 
garchic element  consisted  of  the  council  of  clan  elders.  But 
sometimes  the  families  of  a  few  greater  chiefs  had  come  to 
overshadow  the  rest ;  sometimes,  possibly,  the  various  branches 
of  one  royal  clan  established  their  rule;  in  places,  groups  of 
conquering  families  ruled  the  descendants  of  the  conquered; 
sometimes,  perha,ps,  wealth  helped  to  draw  the  line  between 
"  the  few  "  and  "  the  many,"  though  the  distinction  was  always 
based  fundamentally  upon  blood.  Whatever  the  exact  princi- 
ple of  division,  there  was  in  all  Greek  cities  a  sharp  line  be- 
tween two  classes  —  one  calling  itself  "  the  few,"  "  the  good," 
"  the  noble,"  and  another  called  by  these  "  the  many,"  "  the 
bad,"  « the  base."    "  The  few  "  had  succeeded  the  kings.    "  The 

1  For  instances,  see  Coulanges'  Ancient  City,  238,  239,  and  316. 


§  109]  THE   POLITICAL   REVOLUTION.  105 

many  "  were  oppressed  and  misgoverned,  and  began  to  clamor 
for  relief.  They  were  too  ignorant  as  yet  to  govern  themselves 
OF  to  maintain  themselves  against  the  more  intelligent  and 
better  united  "  few."  The  way  was  prepared  for  them  by  the 
tyrants. 

109.  The  Tyrants  pave  the  Way  for  Democracies.  —  Every- 
where in  city  Greece,  about  700  b.c,  these  tyrants  sprang 
"up,^  often  several  times,  at  short  intervals,  in  the  same  city. 
In  the  outlying  parts  of  Hellas  they  were  a  common  phenom- 
enon through  all  the  later  history,  but  by  the  year  500  they 
had  disappeared  from  the  main  peninsula,  and  so  the  two 
centuries  from  700  to  500  b.c.  are  called  the  "Age  of  Tyrants." 

A  tyrant  in  Greek  history  is  simply  a  man  who  by  force 
seizes  or  holds  royal  power.  Arbitrary  rule  was  hateful  to 
all  Greeks,  and  the  murder  of  a  tyrant  seemed  a  virtuous  act. 
Sometimes,  too,  the  selfish  and  wanton  indulgence  of  such 
rulers  justified  the  detestation  that  clings  to  the  name.  But 
at  the  worst  the  tyrants  seem  to  have  been  a  necessary 
evil,  to  break  down  the  greater  evil  of  the  selfish,  anarchic 
oligarchies ;  and  many  of  them  were  generous,  far-sighted,  be- 
neficent rulers,  building  public  works,  developing  trade,  patro- 
nizing art  and  literature.  The  tyrant  was  made  possible  by 
the  strife  between  the  ruling  few  and  the  oppressed  many,  and 
he  always  appeared  as  champion  of  the  democracy.  Some- 
times he  was  a  noble  opposed  by  his  order ;  sometimes  by  birth 
a  man  of  the  people.  At  Argos,  King  Pheidon  massacred 
the  nobles  and  made  himself  tyrant,  without  the  city  passing 
through  a  complete  oligarchic  stage. 

The  tyrants  surrounded  themselves  with  mercenaries,  but 
they  sought  also  to  keep  the  favor  of  the  masses,  who  had 
helped  them  to  the  throne.  The  nobles  they  could  not  con- 
ciliate; these  they  burdened  with  taxes,  oppressed,  exiled, 
and  murdered  in  great  numbers.  The  story  goes  that  Perian- 
der,  tyrant  of  Corinth,  sent  to  the  tyrant  of  Miletus,  to  ask 

1  Sparta  was  the  only  city  that  did  not  have  a  tyrant  at  this  period. 


106  THE   GREEKS-.  1000  TO   500   B.C.  [§110 

his  advice  in  government.  The  Milesian  took  the  messenger 
through  a  grain  field,  striking  off  the  finest  and  tallest  ears 
as  they  walked,  and  sent  him  back  without  other  answer.  The 
story  certainly  does  stand  for  what  necessarily  became,  to  some 
degree,  the  policy  of  all  tyrants  toward  the  nobles.  And  thus, 
when  the  tyrants  themselves  were  overthrown,  democracy  had 
a  fairer  chance  of  success.  In  the  Ionian  cities,  the  next  step 
was  usually  a  democratic  government.  In  Doric  Greece,  more 
commonly  there  followed  a  return  to  a  broader  aristocracy, 
but  never  to  quite  the  older  and  more  objectionable  form  of 
oligarchy.     The  tyrants  had  done  their  work  effectively. 

References  for  Reading.  —  On  the  political  development :  the 
standard  histories,  and  Coulanges,  Fowler,  and  Greenidge,  12-23.  On 
Oligarchies :  Greenidge,  60-73.  On  Tyrants  :  Mahaffy,  Problems,  78-86, 
or  iS'wrvey,  99-101,  or  Social  Life,  84-90  ;  Greenidge,  27-35;  Grote,  ch.  ix. 

Exercise. — Contrast  the  "tyrants"  with  the  Homeric  kings  as  to 
origin  of  power,  as  to  limitation  by  custom  and  public  opinion,  as  to 
security  in  their  positions. 


VI.    THE   RISE   OF   SPARTA. 

110.  Early  Sparta :  the  Need  of  Reforms ;  Subsequent  Growth.  — 
The  invading  Dorians  founded  numerous  petty  states  in  the 
Peloponnesus.  For  a  time  one  of  the  weakest  of  these  was 
Sparta.  Her , territory  —  just  a  few  square  miles  in  the  rich 
Eurotas  valley  —  did  not  approach  the  sea,  and  it  was  sur- 
rounded by  powerful  and  grasping  neighbors.  Internally,  too, 
Sparta  was  torn  by  faction. 

The  later  Spartans  attributed  their  escape  from  these  threat- 
ening conditions  to  the  reforms  of  a  certain  Lycurgus.  Cer- 
tainly about  the  year  900  b.c,  whether  the  reformer's  name 
was  Lycurgus  or  not,  the  Spartans  did  adopt  peculiar  social  and 
political  institutions  that  made  them  a  marked  people  in  later 
Greek  history.  Disciplined  and  hardened  by  this  code,  they 
entered  upon  a  career  of  conquest.  Before  700  b.c.  they  had 
subdued  all  Laconia;    before  650,  Messenia  also;    while  the 


§  111]  THE   RISE   OF   SPARTA.  107 

other  states  of  the  Peloponnesus,  except  hostile  Argos,  had 
become  their  allies  for  war. 

111.  The  Political  Constitution.  —  Sparta  had  two  kings„  Le- 
gend ascribed  this  to  the  birth  of  twin  princes.  What- 
ever the  occasion,  the  nobles  in  this  city  weakened  the  royal 
power  by  dividing  it,  and  so  were  less  tempted  to  abolish  it. 
In  consequence,  Sparta  is  the  one  Greek  city  which  had  no 
4iyrant  in  this  period.  The  kings  were  members  of  a  senate  of 
thirty  elders  —  originally,  no  doubt,  the  heads  of  Sparta's 
thirty  clans.  The  other  twenty-eight  senators,  however,  had 
become  elective,  but  only  from  the  old  noble  families.^  The 
oflB.ce  was  for  life.  No  one  under  sixty  years  was  eligible. 
The  senate  for  the  greater  part  of  Spartan  history  was  the 
chief  political  body  in  the  state.  A  popular  Assembly  of  all 
free  Spartans  chose  senators  and  other  oflficers,  and  decided 
important  matters  laid  before  it,  but  it  had  no  right  to  intro- 
duce new  measures.  Discussion  was  limited  to  the  chiefs  and 
great  oflficers,  and  at  a  later  time  the  senate  secured  the  power, 
"  if  the  people  decide  anything  crookedly,  to  put  it  back." 

So  far  this  was  a  close  survival  of  the  Homeric  constitution, 
except  that  the  two  kings  checked  each  other's  authority,  and 
that  the  Assembly  elected  the  council.  But  about  725  b.c. 
Sparta  took  a  great  stride  toward  democracy.  Elected  magis- 
trates, called  ^p?iors,  assumed  the  headship  of  the  state.  Five  of 
these  were  chosen  each  year  by  the  Assembly,  and  any  Spartan 
was  eligible  to  the  oflfice.  The  Ephors  called  the  Assembly  and 
presided  over  it,  and  acted  as  judges  in  all  important  matters. 
No  appeal  from  their  decision  was  allowed.  One  or  more  of 
them  accompanied  the  king,  even  in  war,  with  power  to  control 

1  Aristotle,  Politics,  ii.  9.  Aristotle  calls  the  mode  of  election  "  childish." 
The  candidates  were  led  through  the  assembly  In  turn,  and  as  each  passed, 
the  people  shouted.  Judges,  shut  up  in  a  room  from  which  they  could  not  see 
the  candidates,  listened  to  the  shouts  and  gave  the  vacancy  to  the  one  whose 
appearance  had  called  out  the  loudest  welcome.  This  method,  after  all,  has 
an  interesting  relation  to  our  viva-voce  voting,  where  we  decide,  in  the  first 
instance,  by  noise. 


108  THE   GREEKS  — 1000  TO   500  B.C.  [§112 

his  movements  and  to  arrest  and  condemn  him.  The  kings 
had  now  become  simply  priests,  judges  in  certain  unimportant 
matters  of  family  law,  generals  in  war,  and  members  of  the 
senate.  Sparta  kept  the  form  and  dignity  of  ancient  royalty, 
and  she  was  intensely  aristocratic  in  feeling,  but  in  reality  she 
was  a  military  democracy  under  the  annual  dictatorship  of  an 
elected  committee  of  Ephors. 

To  the  Greeks,  however,  such  delegation  of  power,  even  to 
officers  elected  for  short  terms,  seemed  undemocratic.  They 
would  not  have  called  our  government  by  President,  Congress, 
and  Supreme  Court  a  democracy  at  all.^  To  them  democracy 
meant  a  government  in  which  each  freeman  took  somewhat  the 
same  part  that  a  member  of  Congress  does  with  us  —  a  system 
such  that  each  citizen  voted,  not  occasionally,  to  elect  repre- 
sentatives, but  constantly,  on  all  matters  of  great  state  policy, 
which  matters  also  he  might  discuss  in  the  ruling  assembly  of 
his  city-country.     By  this  standard  Sparta  was  aristocratic. 

112.  Classes  in  Laconia.  —  Moreover,  after  the  conquest  of 
Laconia,  the  Spartans  as  a  whole  were  a  ruling  oligarchy  in 
the  midst  of  a  subject  class  eight  or  ten  times  their  number. 
They  were  simply  a  camp  of  eight  or  nine  thousand  conquerors 
(with  their  families)  living  under  arms  in  their  unwalled  city, 
and  holding  the  most  fertile  lands  of  Laconia.  They  them- 
selves, wholly  given  to  camp  life,  could  not  work,  and  each 
man's  land  was  tilled  by  certain  slaves  of  the  state,  called 
Helots. 

The  Helots  nlimbered  four  or  five  to  one  Spartan,  and  so 
were  a  standing  danger,  though  they  were  the  indispensable 
basis  for  any  such  system.  They  furnished  light-armed  troops 
in  war.  A  secret  police  of  active  Spartan  youth  busied  itself 
in  detecting  plots  among  them  and  sometimes,  it  is  claimed, 
carried  out  secret  and  widespread  massacre  of  the  more  in- 
telligent and  ambitious  slaves.  Each  year,  too,  the  Ephors 
declared  war  against  the  Helots  in  the  name  of  the  State,  — 

1  A  good  treatment  is  found  in  Grant's  Greece,  144-146. 


§  112]  THE   RISE   OF  SPARTA.  109 

that  it  might  be  lawful  for  any  Spartan  to  kill  them  without 
trial,  —  and  ancient  critics  are  prone  to  refer  to  the  mysterious 
way  in  which  crowds  of  Helots  vanished  sometimes,  when 
their  numbers  threatened  Spartan  safety.  On  one  occasion,  in 
the  great  death  struggle  with  Athens  in  the  fifth  century,  the 
Spartans  had  given  the  Helots  heavy  armor,  but  afterward 
became  terrified  at  the  possible  consequences.  Thucydides 
(iv.  80)  tells  how  they  met  the  danger :  — 

"  They  proclaimed  that  a  selection  would  be  made  of  those  Helots  who 
claimed  to  have  rendered  the  best  service  to  the  Lacedaemonians  in  the 
war,  and  promised  them  liberty.  The  announcement  was  intended  to 
test  them  ;  it  was  thought  that  those  among  them  who  were  foremost  in 
asserting  their  freedom  would  be  most  high-spirited  and  most  likely  to  rise 
against  their  masters.  So  they  selected  about  two  thousand,  who  were 
crowned  with  garlands,  and  went  in  procession  round  the  temples  ;  they 
were  supposed  to  have  received  their  liberty,  but  not  long  afterwards  the 
Spartans  put  them  all  out  of  the  way,  and  no  man  knew  how  any  of  them 
came  to  their  end." 

The  inhabitants  of  the  hundred  small  subject  "cities"  of 
Laconia  were  called  Perioeci.  They  were  free  in  person. 
They  kept  their  own  customs  and  a  share  in  the  government 
of  their  respective  cities,  under  the  supervision  of  Spartan 
harmosts.  They  had  also  their  own  lands,  and  they  carried  on 
such  trades  and  commerce  as  existed  in  Laconia.  They  were 
three  or  four  to  one  Spartan ;  and  the  heavy-armed  soldiers  of 
the  Spartan  army  came  in  large  measure  from  them.  They 
had  no  voice  in  the  supreme  state,  and  the  Ephors  could  put 
them  to  death  without  trial,  but  they  seem,  as  a  rule,  to  have 
been  well  treated  and  well  content. 

Thus  the  inhabitants  of  Laconia  fall  into  three  classes: 
(1)  a  small  ruling  oligarchy,  living  in  one  central  settlement, 
itself  an  elective  military  dictatorship;  (2)  a  large  class  of 
cruelly  treated  agricultural  serfs,  to  support  these  aristo- 
cratic soldiers;  (3)  another  large  class  of  well-treated  city 
populations,  without  political  rights  except  for  a  limited  local 
self-government. 


110  THE  GREEKS  — 1000  TO  500  B.C.  [§  113 

113.  Social  Institutions.  —  The  garrison  at  Sparta  maintained 
its  superiority  in  Laconia  by  an  unrelaxing  vigilance  and 
by  a  rigid  discipline,  which  is  sometimes  lauded  as  *•  the 
Spartan  training."  That  training  made  good  soldiers,  as  was 
its  sole  aim ;  but  naturally  it  was  harsh,  and  in  many  ways 
brutalizing.  The  family,  as  well  as  the  man,  belonged  abso- 
lutely to  the  army-state. 

At  the  birth  of  each  child,  the  Ephors  decided  whether  it 
should  be  reared  at  all  or  be  exposed  to  die  as  a  weakling.  At 
seven  years  each  boy  was  taken  from  his  parents,  to  be  trained 
in  a  public  institution  until  he  was  twenty  —  never  again  to 
sleep  under  his  mother's  roof.  The  system  of  education  aimed 
to  harden  and  strengthen  the  body  and  to  render  the  mind 
self-controlled  and  obedient  to  authority.  On  certain  festival 
days,  boys  were  whipped  at  the  altars  to  test  their  endurance ; 
and  Plutarch  states  that  they  often  died  under  the  lash  rather 
than  utter  a  cry.^  A  bare  knowledge  of  reading  and  a  little 
martial  music  were  the  only  germs  of  culture. 

From  twenty  to  thirty  the  youth  lived  under  arms  in  barracks. 
He  was  one  of  a  mess  of  fifteen,  each  of  whom  must  provide  from 
his  land  his  part  of  the  barley  meal,  cheese,  and  black  broth, 
with  meat  on  holidays.  The  mess  drilled  and  fought  side  by 
side ;  and  this  long  exclusive  devotion  to  military  drill  made 
it  possible  for  the  Spartans  to  adopt  a  more  complex  system  of 
tactics  than  was  natural  for  their  neighbors.  The  other  Greeks 
continued  much  longer  to  fight  in  masses,  with  a  few  heralds 
to  shout  the  orders  of  the  general.  The  Spartans  were  trained 
in  small  regiments  and  companies,  so  as  to  maneuver  readily 
at  the  word  of  command.  This  made  their  great  superiority  in 
the  field;  they  stood  to  the  other  Greeks  as  disciplined,  pro- 
fessional soldiery  to  a  relatively  untrained  militia. 


1  Several  features  of  Spartan  life  that  are  ascribed  by  popular  legend  to 
Lycurgus,  seem  rather  to  have  been  survivals  of  a  barbarous  period  that  the 
Spartans  never  wholly  outgrew;  this  particular  custom,  just  alluded  to  in  the 
text,  is  closely  analogous  to  the  savage  Sun  Dance  of  the  American  Indians 
and  belongs  properly  to  that  grade  of  culture. 


§  114]  ATHENS.  Ill 

At  thirty  the  man  was  required  by  law  to  marry,  in  order  to 
rear  more  soldiers ;  but  he  must  still  eat  and,  for  the  most  part, 
live,  in  barracks.  Said  an  Athenian,  "  The  Spartan's  life  is  so 
unendurable  that  it  is  no  wonder  he  throws  it  away  lightly  in 
battle." 

Certain  virtue  there  was,  of  course,  in  this  training.  The 
Spartans  had  the  quiet  dignity  of  born  rulers.  The  pithy 
brevity  of  their  speech  ("  laconic "  speech),  their  use  of  only 
iron  money,  and  their  austere  simplicity  of  life,  made  them  a 
moral  force  in  the  Greek  world ;  and  the  changeless  character 
of  their  constitution  for  five  hundred  years  after  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  Ephors  was  a  protest  against  the  kaleidoscopic 
revolutions  of  surrounding  states.  Their  women,  too,  kept  a 
freedom  which  unhappily  was  lost  in  more  civilized  Greek 
cities.  But,  after  all,  the  value  of  the  Spartans  to  the  world 
lay  in  the  fact  that  they  made  a  garrison  for  all  Greece 
(§  156),  and  helped  to  save  something  better  than  themselves. 
In  themselves,  they  were  hard,  ignorant,  narrow.  They  did 
nothing  to  create  art,  literature,  science,  or  philosophy.  So 
far  as  they  were  concerned,  these  glories  of  Greece  never  had 
an  existence.  If  the  Greeks  had  all  been  Spartans,  we  could 
well  afford  to  omit  the  study  of  Greek  history. 

References  for  Further  Reading.  —  Xenophon's  Polity  of  the 
Lacedaemonians  (Dakyns'  edition)  ;  some  pages  of  vakiable  extracts,  with 
questions,  in  Fling's  Studies  in  Greek  and  Boman  Civilization.  VXu- 
tuYch^s  Ly cur gus  and  Lysander  ;  Curtius,  I.  175-315;  Grote,  II.  337-466 
(12  vol.  ed.)  ;  Holm,  I.  194-278,  and  430-447  ;  Abbott,  I.  194-224  ;  Green- 
idge,  77-115 ;  Gilbert,  1-81 ;  Oman,  chs.  vii.  viii. 

VII.    ATHENS  TO  500  B.C. 

The  history  of  Athens  is  for  us  the  history  of  Greece.  — Holm. 

A.    Preliminary  Considerations. 

114.  Two  Peculiar  Conditions  did  much  to  fix  the  place  of 
Athens  in  Greek  history :  (1)  Athens  was  the  sole  city  of  Attica 
(a  considerable  territory) ;  (2)  her  population  was  mingled  of 


112  THE   GREEKS  — 1000  TO   500   B.C.  [§115 

many  elements,  but  without  the  sharp  divisions  that  elsewhere 
followed  conquest  by  aliens. 

As  to  the  first  consideration:  Sparta  and  Athens  became 
leading  cities  in  Greece  because  they,  and  they  alone,  were 
more  than  single  cities.  They  had  both  carried  the  political 
consolidation  of  neighboring  territory  farther  than  any  other 
Greek  state.  In  other  territories  as  large  as  Attica  or  Laconia 
there  were  always  groups  of  independent  cities.  In  Boeotia, 
for  instance,  Thebes  at  best  could  aspire  to  only  a  limited 
leadership  among  a  dozen  jealous  rivals.  In  Attica,  happily, 
the  germs  of  such  separate  cities  had  been  consolidated  in  one. 
What  Sparta  was  to  Laconia  by  later  conquest,  Athens  had 
become  to  Attica  before  the  opening  of  history  —  and  some- 
thing over.  It  had  carried  consolidation  further.  It  was  the 
real  home  of  all  the  free  inhabitants  of  Attica,  not  merely  the 
camp  of  one  dominant  tribe.  In  Laconia  political  union  came 
through  subjection,  which  left  lasting  class  distinctions  between 
a  ruling  city  and  the  other  Laconians.  In  Attica  union  came 
through  incorporation,  which  wiped  out  such,  distinctions  of 
locality.  In  legend,  Lycurgus  made  the  Spartans  an  army  to 
hold  down  neighboring  hostile  subjects,  while  Theseus  made 
all  inhabitants  of  Attica  Athenians. 

As  to  the  second  consideration :  Ionian  Attica  seems  to  have 
been  the  one  spot  of  southern  Greece  not  overrun  by  conquest 
at  the  time  of  the  Dorian  migration.  Naturally,  it  became 
an  asylum  for  refugees,  especially  for  Ionian  clans  driven  from 
the  Peloponnesus.  The  wealthier  and  more  powerful  of  these 
were  admitted  into  the  tribes  of  Attica ;  others,  no  doubt,  were 
received  as  dependants.  It  followed  that  subsequent  class 
struggles  were  less  bitter  than  in  most  of  Greece,  where  class 
divisions  were  connected  with  ancient  conquests  and  race 
hatreds,  instead  of  with  friendly  patronage. 

115.  Other  Causes  favoring  a  Many-sided  Development.  —  The 
repeated  introduction  of  fresh  elements  from  many  sources, 
under  such  conditions,  in  itself  made  for  a  progressive,  demo- 


§117]  ATHENS  — EUPATRID   RULE.  113 

cratic  people,  open  to  outside  influence.  Happily,  the  tendency 
was  reenforced  by  the  later  commercial  life  of  Athens,  to  which 
her  thin  soil  impelled  her  no  less  than  location  tempted  her. 

116.  Athens  as  a  Type.  —  Despite  her  peculiar  conditions,  it  is 
right  and  convenient  to  regard  Athens  as  a  type.  Hellas  com- 
prised hundreds  of  cities,  each  with  its  internal  history  of 
progress  and  revolution,  and  with  its  foreign  relations.  No 
study  can  survey  many  of  these.  Sparta  and  Athens  are 
selected  because  they  became  the  leading  states.  Sparta,  how- 
ever, is  less  fit  than  Athens  to  stand  for  the  history  of  Greece ; 
and  even  Athens  exaggerates  the  size,  the  democracy,  and  the 
many-sidedness  of  the  average  city. 

The  chief  danger,  however,  is  that  the  student  will  not 
realize  the  infinite  complexity  of  Greek  history,  and  that  he 
will  think  of  Athens  as  the  whole,  instead  of  as  a  type.  It 
must  be  borne  in  mind  constantly  that  the  internal  history  of 
this  city  was  paralleled,  with  slight  modifications,  by  that  of 
scores  of  others  which  this  volume  does  not  even  name. 

B.   EupATRiD   Rule  —  after   the    First  Political  Revo- 
lution. 

117.  The  Decline  of  the  Homeric  Kingship.  —  Like  other  Greek 
cities,  Athens  had  lost  her  kings  in  the  obscure  period  follow- 
ing the  Migrations  (§  107) ;  and  when  history  begins  again,  her 
government  is  an  oligarchy.  According  to  the  common  tradi- 
tion, restrictions  upon  the  royal  power  began  in  Athens  about 
1000  B.C.,  after  the  death  of  King  Codrus.  The  royal  ofiice  was 
still  for  life,  and  hereditary  in  the  family  of  Codrus,  but  along- 
side the  Mng-archon  (basileus)  with  his  priestly  function,  arose 
a  new  war-archon  (polemarcJi),  and  —  a  little  later,  perhaps  —  a 
chief-archon,  usually  styled  The  Archon,  to  act  as  judge  and 
administrator.  These  latter  officers  were  elected  by  the  Eupa- 
trids  ("well-born"),  or  chiefs;  and  in  752  B.C.,  the  office  of 
king-archon  also  was  made  elective  and  limited  to  a  ten  years' 
term.     For  some  time,  however,  the  choice  was   still   made 


114  THE   GREEKS— 1000   TO   500  B.C.  [§118 

from  the  old  royal  family;  then  it  was  thrown  open  to  any 
Eupatrid.  In  682  B.C.  the  archons  were  all  made  annual  offi- 
cers; and  alongside  them  were  set  six  lesser  archons,  called 
"  decision-givers,"  to  assist  in  the  growing  judicial  work. 

118.  Political  Rule  of  the  Eupatrids.  —  Apparently  the  Eupa- 
trids  were  the  chiefs,  or  clan  elders,  of  the  numerous  clans  in 
Attica.  Their  council  was  called  the  Areopagus,  from  the  hill 
where  it  met.  They  ruled  Attica  in  this  assembly  and  through 
this  committee  of  archons  from  their  own  number.  The  other 
tribesmen  must  have  had  an  assembly,  for  religious  and  mili- 
tary purposes ;  but  it  seems  to  have  had  even  less  voice  than 
in  Homeric  times. 

119.  Economic  Oppression. — The  worst  hardships  of  the  tribes- 
men, however,  were  economic.  Most  of  the  land  had  come  to 
belong  to  the  Eupatrids.  They  tilled  it  largely  by  tenants, 
who  paid  five  sixths  the  produce  for  rent.  A  bad  season  or 
hostile  ravages  often  compelled  these  tenants  to  borrow  seed 
or  food,  and  to  mortgage  their  persons  for  payment.  If  the 
debtor  failed  to  pay  promptly,  he  could  be  dragged  off  in 
chains  and  sold  with  his  family  into  slavery.^ 

Apparently,  alongside  the  great  Eupatrid  landlords  and  these 
tenants,  there  stood  a  class  of  small  farmers  owning  their  lands ; 
but  they  also  were  reduced  frequently  to  borrow  of  the  Eupa- 
trids, and  in  consequence  to  pass  into  much  the  condition  of 
the  poorer  tenants.    Aristotle  says  :  — 

"  The  poor  with  their  wives  and  children  were  the  very  bondsmen  of 
the  rich,  who  named  them  Sixth-men,  because  it  was  for  this  wage  they 
tilled  the  land.  The  entire  land  was  in  the  hands  of  a  few.  If  the  poor 
failed  to  pay  their  rents  they  were  liable  to  be  haled  into  slavery.     Their 

1  Money  had  been  introduced  a  little  before  this  time.  Eventually  it  was 
to  help  free  the  poor  from  the  control  of  the  rich,  but  just  at  first  it  may  have 
rendered  worse  the  condition  of  the  agricultural  tenants.  The  old  rents  (a 
given  fraction  of  the  produce)  had  varied  from  year  to  year  according  to  the 
crops.  In  changing  to  fixed  cash  rents,  probably  the  grasping  landlords,  able 
to  dictate  terms,  put  the  amount  higher  than  the  old  average. 


§  122]  ATHENS  — THE   EUPATRIDS.  115 

very  persons  were  mortgaged,  until  Solon's  time  ;  for  it  was  he  first  advo- 
cated the  people's  cause."  And  again  —  "  They  [the  people]  were  discon- 
tented with  every  other  feature  of  their  lot,  for,  to  speak  generally,  they 
had  no  share  in  anything."  —  Constitution  of  Athens^  2. 

120.  The  Order  of  Reform,  Social  and  Political.  —  By  593  b.c. 
very  different  institutions,  political  and  economic,  had  come 
into  being,  but  the  steps  from  the  old  order  to  the  new  are  in 
part  uncertain.  It  does  seem  clear,  however,  that  the  first 
attempts  at  reform  were  only  partially  successful,  because  they 
did  not  touch  these  social  conditions;  and  that  Solon's  work 
at  the  close  of  the  period  was  more  important  mainly  because 
it  did  begin  with  the  economic  evils. 

C.   The   Early   Attempts  to  Overthrow  the   Eupatrids. 

121.  Eupatrid    Supremacy   shared  with  the  Hoplites. — The 

supremacy  of  the  Eupatrids  rested  largely  on  superiority 
in  war.  They  composed  the  knights,  or  heavy -armed  cavalry 
of  Attica,  in  comparison  with 
whom  the  early  foot  soldiery 
was  only  a  light-armed  mob. 
But  before  650  b.c.  there  had 
grown  up  a  heavy-armed  in- 
fantry, with  shield,  helmet,  and 
long  spear. 

The  serried  ranks  of  these 
"  hoplites  "  proved  able  to  repel 
cavalry;    and  with   the   decay 

of  the  importance  of  the  Eupa- 

.      ^  ^  Greek  Hoplitk. 

trids    in  war   went    some    de- 
crease in  their  exclusive  political  privilege.^ 

122.  The  Four  Classes:  Political  Power  based  in  part  upon 
Wealth.  —  Better  to  maintain  the  military  system,  a  census  dis- 
tributed the  tribesmen  into  four  classes,  based  upon  annual 

iRead  Abbott,  II.  22.. 


116  THE  GREEKS  — 1000  TO  600  B.C.  [§123 

income  from  land  —  500-measure  men,  300-measiire  men,  200- 
measure  men,  and  those  whose  income  was  less  than  200  meas- 
ures. The  first  two  classes  were  under  obligation  to  serve  as 
knights,  and  were  doubtless  at  this  time  all  Eupatrids ;  the 
third  class  were  thought  able  to  equip  themselves  as  hoplites  ; 
the  fourth  class  were  called  into  the  field  less  often  and  only  as 
light-armed  troops. 

This  system,  designed  to  regulate  obligation  to  the  State, 
became  also,  to  some  degree,  a  basis  for  the  distribution  of 
privilege.  From  the  three  higher  classes  (all  the  heavy-armed 
soldiery)  was  formed  a  new  Assembly,  which  elected  archons 
(from  the  first  class)  and  other  officers  and  created  a  new  elec- 
tive senate  to  take  some  of  the  power  of  the  Areopagus.  The 
exact  details  of  this  "  Constitution  of  Classes  "  are  so  uncertain 
that  it  seems  best  to  leave  them  to  be  stated  as  they  appear 
more  clearly  after  the  legislation  of  Solon  (§  125  ff.). 

Much  that  was  attributed  to  Solon  by  tradition  and  by  ancient  his- 
torians, and  until  recently  by  modern  authorities,  is  credited  to  these 
earlier  changes,  in  a  lately  discovered  treatise  by  Aristotle  on  the 
Athenian  constitution.  Aristotle  wrote,  of  course,  over  three  hundred 
years  after  these  early  reforms ;  and  while  his  authority  makes  the  old 
accounts  uncertain,  it  does  not  always  establish  a  satisfactory  substitute. 

123.  Imperfect  Results ;  Attempts  at  Tyranny.  —  In  practice, 
however,  authority  certainly  remained  with  the  old  oligarchy, 
who  seemed  as  securely  intrenched  under  the  new  system  by 
their  monopoly  of  land  as  they  had  been  before  by  birth.  The 
hoplites,  too,  must  have  come  largely  from  their  immediate 
dependents.  Their  rule  continued  selfish  and  incompetent, 
and  nothing  had  been  done  to  remedy  the  economic  distress. 
Finally,  ambitious  adventurers  began  to  try  to  make  them- 
selves tyrants  by  help  of  the  bitter  dissatisfaction  of  the 
people,  and  one  young  noble,  Cylon^  with  his  forces,  actually 
held  the  Acropolis,  or  citadel,  for  a  time. 

124.  Draco :  Fixed  Laws.  —  The  Eupatrids  were  frightened 
into  further  concessions,  and  in  621  b.c.  one  of  the  archons, 
Draco,  was  commissioned  to  draw  up  a  written  code  of  laws, 


§  125]  ATHENS  — SOLON.  117 

for  which  the  people  had  been  clamoring.  Oftentimes  the  old 
custom-law  was  known  only  to  the  Eupatrid  judges ;  the  grow- 
ing complexity  of  society  must  have  made  new  regulations 
needful ;  and  th&J judges  had  to  meet  these  needs  by  their 
own  arbitrar^t-disci^etion.  The  people  did  not  yet  ask  for 
new  laws,  but  only  for  fixed  and  known  laws,  so  that  the 
judges  should  have  a  smaller  range  of  discretion  to  abuse  in 
the  interests  of  their  own  class.^ 

It  seems  probable  that  Draco  only  reduced  ancient  customs 
to  more  definite  form.  If  any  changes  were  made,  they  must 
have  concerned  some  slight  rearrangements  of  political  power, 
without  touching  the  root  of  existing  evils.^  The  laws  were 
engraved  on  wooden  blocks  and  set  up  where  all  might  see 
them.  The  immediate  result  was  to  make  men  feel  how  in- 
adequate and  harsh  the  old  laws  were  —  "written  in  blood 
rather  than  ink,"  as  was  said  in  a  later  age.  Now  the  Athe- 
nians were  ready  to  demand  new  laws. 

D.   Solon  —  Overthrow  of  the  Eupatrids. 

125.   Continued  Strife ;   Appointment  of  Solon  as  Dictator.  — 

After  describing  matters  as  Draco  left  them,  Aristotle  says:  — 
*'Now,  seeing  that  such  was  the  organization  of  the  constitution,  and 
that  the  many  were  [still]  in  slavery  to  the  few,  the  people  arose  against 
the  upper  classes.  The  strife  was  keen,  and  for  a  long  time  the  parties 
were  in  hostile  camps,  till  at  last  by  common  consent  they  appointed 
Solon  to  be  mediator." 

Solon  —  poet,  general,  statesman,  philosopher,  merchant  — 
was  a  descendant  of  Codrus.  He  was  loved  by  the  poorer 
Athenians  and  trusted  by  all.  His  patriotism  had  been  proven. 
Some  years  before,  class  dissensions  had  so  reduced  Athens 

1  It  is  curious  to  see  elsewhere  similar  demands  by  the  people  upon  the 
aristocrats  for  written  laws  —  as  in  Rome  at  the  time  of  the  Decemvirs  and 
the  Twelve  Tables,  and  even  in  early  Massachusetts,  before  the  adoption  of 
the  Body  of  Liberties,  the  first  code  in  America,  in  1641. 

2  Aristotle's  Constitution  of  Athens  is  the  only  authority  for  ascribing 
political  changes  to  Draco;  and  such  changes  are  denied  by  another  work 
of  Aristotle  {Politics,  ii.  12) . 


118  THE   GREEKS  — 1000  TO   500  B.C.  [§126 

that  little  Megara,  under  the  firm  rule  of  an  enterprising 
"tyrant/'  had  taken  Salamis  and  blockaded  the  Athenian 
ports.  Efforts  to  recover  the  important  island  failed  so  mis- 
erably that  in  despair  the  Athenians  had  agreed  to  put  to 
death  any  one  who  should  again  propose  the  attempt.  Solon 
shammed  madness,  —  to  claim  a  crazy  man's  privilege,  —  and, 
by  reciting  a  warlike  patriotic  poem,  roused  his  countrymen 
to  fresh  efforts,  which,  under  his  generalship,  proved  success- 
ful. Now,  in  this  internal  crisis,  all  factions  concurred  in 
giving  him  authority  to  remodel  the  constitution.  Solon  had 
blamed  the  greed  of  the  rich  as  the  cause  of  trouble,  but  had 
urged  reconcilation,  in  a  poem  beginning,  "  My  eyes  are  opened, 
and  I  see  with  anguish  the  plight  of  this  oldest  home  of  the 
ancient  Ionian  race.''  This  was  the  immediate  occasion,  Aris- 
totle says,  of  Solon's  appointment.  The  Delphic  oracle  advised 
him  to  make  himself  tyrant,  and  his  friends  certainly  hoped 
that  he  would  not  lay  down  his  power.  He  was  really  an 
"  elected  tyrant "  for  two  years.^ 

126.   The  Shaking  off  of  Burdens.  — The  first  year  Solon  dealt 

with  economic  evils. 

a.  Out  of  the  old  tenants  he  created  a  class  of  free  peasant 
proprietors.  .The  lands  which  they  had  cultivated  for  the 
Eupatrids  he  made  their  own ;  he  boasts  in  a  poem  of  "  free- 
ing the  enslaved  land"  by  removing  the  stone  pillars  (of  re- 
ligious significance)  which  had  marked  Eupatrid  ownership.^ 

h.   He  canceled  all  debts.® 

c.  He  freed  all  Athenians  who  were  in  slavery  in  Attica. 

d.  He  made  it  illegal,  for  the  future,  to  reduce  Athenians  to 
slavery,  or  to  own  more  than  a  certain  quantity  of  land. 

1  This  is  Aristotle's  expression  (Politics,  iii.  14,  and  iv.  10). 

2  This  view  is  not  always  accepted.  Many  scholars  think  that  Solon  sim- 
ply canceled  mortgages,  and  made  the  future  transfer  of  land  easier  hy 
removing  religious  obstacles. 

8  It  used  to  be  doubted  whether  all  debts,  or  only  part  of  them,  were  can- 
celed, but  Aristotle's  treatise  is  clear  on  this  point.  Interest  was  so  high  that 
in  many  cases  the  principal  had  been  paid  over  and  over. 


§127]  ATHENS  — SOLON.  119 

The  last  regulation  aimed  to  prevent  any  recurrence  of  the 
old  evils.  The  first  three  measures  roughly  redressed  the  past. 
They  were,  of  course,  a  sweeping  confiscation  of  property.  The 
Eupatrids  showed  a  singular  moderation  in  submitting  to  them 
without  a  death  struggle.  Happily,  the  act  did  not  become  a 
precedent.  The  Athenians  never  again  went  so  far  as  to  con- 
fiscate debts.  In  later  times  the  whole  people  celebrated  the 
acts  of  Solon  by  a  yearly  "Festival  of  the  Shaking  off  of 
Burdens." 

127.  Political  Reform.  —  Indirectly,  a  political  revolution 
went  with  these  economic  changes,  although,  so  far,  the  let- 
ter of  the  constitution  was  untouched.  Political  power  was 
already  based  upon  landed  property.  Accordingly,  these  land 
reforms  carried  with  them  a  redistribution  of  political  power. 
The  process  continued,  too,  of  itself.  Merchants,  by  the  pur- 
chase of  land,  rose  into  the  first  class,  while  Eupatrids  sank 
into  other  classes  until  the  very  name  soon  disappeared.  But, 
in  a  second  year,  Solon  did  directly  introduce  political  changes 
that  carried  Athens  well  into  the  current  of  democracy.  He 
seems  not  to  have  created  new  offices  or  institutions ;  but,  as 
he  had  already  redistributed  the  people  within  the  old  political 
classes,  so  now  he  redistributed  power  among  these  classes  and 
among  the  old  governing  bodies. 

a.  The  fourth  class,  who  had  had  no  political  rights,  were 
now  admitted  to  the  Assembly. 

b.  A  senate  of  four  hundred  (one  hundred  by  lot  from  the 
higher  classes  of  each  Athenian  tribe)  took  over  the  general 
administration  from  the  Areopagus,  and  prepared  measures  to 
submit  to  the  Assembly. 

c.  Tlie  new  Assembly  (all  Athenians)  discussed  and  decided 
upon  proposals  of  the  senate ;  elected  archons  from  the  first 
class,^  and  minor  officers  from  the  three  higher  classes ;  and 

1  Aristotle  says  that  by  Solon's  constitution  the  archons  were  chosen  by  lot 
from  forty  candidates  nominated  in  equal  numbers  by  the  separate  tribes. 
But  if  this  was  so,  the  practice  of  election  seems  to  have  been  revived  within 
a  short  time,  and  to  have  continued  until  487  B.C.  (§  193). 


120  THE   GREEKS  — 1000  TO   500  B.C.  [§128 

tried  officers  at  the  expiration  of  their  terms,  if  any  citizen 
accused  them. 

d.  TJie  Areopagus  was  no  longer  a  Eupatrid  council.  It 
was  composed  of  ex-archons,  and  was  shorn  of  most  of  its 
powers.  Its  deliberative  and  administrative  office  had  gone 
to  the  senate;  its  power  of  electing  archons  to  the  Assembly; 
its  judicial  function  (for  the  most  part)  to  the  Assembly  and 
to  new  courts.  It  remained  a  court  to  try  murder  cases,  and  to 
exercise  a  moral  censorship  over  the  life  of  the  citizens,  with 
power  to  impose  fines  for  extravagance,  insolence,  or  gluttony. 

128.  Minor  Reforms.  —  Solon  also  substituted  a  milder  code 
for  Draco's  bloody  laws,  introduced  a  new  coinage  better  suited 
for  foreign  commerce,  made  it  the  duty  of  each  father  to  teach 
his  son  a  trade  (upon  penalty  of  forfeiting  obligation  for  sup- 
port in  his  old  age),  limited  the  wealth  that  might  be  buried 
with  the  dead,  restricted  the  appearance  of  women  in  public, 
and  enacted  that  any  Athenian  who  remained  neutral  in  civic 
strife  should  forfeit  citizenship. 

129.  Summary  of  the  Solonian  Constitution  and  of  the  Changes 
of  a  Century. 

682  B.C.  —  A  few  noble  families  owned  most  of  the  soil,  and 
held  the  rest  of  the  people  in  virtual  servitude.  These  same 
families  of  course  possessed  all  political  power,  and  ruled 
through  the  assembly  of  their  order  on  the  Areopagus,  and 
through  annual  committees  chosen  by  that  body. 

S9S  B.C.  —  Nearly  all  Athenian  tribesmen  were  land  owners. 
All  tribesmen  were  members  of  the  political  Assembly,  which 
elected  officers  (so  far  as  election  was  not  settled  by  lot),  tried 
them  upon  occasion,  and  decided  public  questions;  Adminis- 
trative power  rested  partly  in  annual  officers  and  partly  in  a 
senate  chosen  by  tribes.  Eligibility  to  office  was  based  upon 
property  qualification.^ 

1  This  was  the  case  in  nearly  all  the  American  states  for  some  time  jutter 
the  Revolutionary  War. 


§  131]  ATHENS  — THE   TYRANTS.  121 

The  economic  change  was  all  Solon's.  The  political  reforms 
were  largely  his,  and  any  that  had  been  introduced  before 
gained  increased  significance  from  his  work.  The  lot  was 
introduced,  doubtless,  to  check  the  tendency  to  elect  only  the 
old  chiefs.  It  was  regarded  as  an  appeal  to  the  gods,  and  its 
use  was  always  accompanied  by  religious  ceremonies. 

E.   The  Tyrants. 

130.  Anarchy  Renewed.  —  The  reforms  of  Solon  did  not 
end  the  turbulent  strife  of  factions.  Bitter  feuds  followed 
between  the  Plain  (wealthy  landowners),  the  Shore  (mer- 
chants), and  the  Mountain  (shepherds  and  small  farmers). 
Twice  within  ten  years,  anarchy  prevented  the  election  of  an 
archon  at  all,  and  once  an  archon  tried  to  make  himself  tyrant 
by  holding  over  without  reelection. 

131.  Peisistratus,  560-527.  —  From  such  anarchy  the  city 
was  saved  by  Peisistratus,  a  kinsman  of  Solon,  who  in  560 
B.C.  made  himself  tyrant  by  help  of  the  democratic  faction. 
Twice  the  nobles  drove  film  into  exile,  once  for  ten  years,  but 
each  time  he  recovered  his  power  almost  without  bloodshed. 
His  rule  was  mild,  wise,  and  popular.  He  lived  simply,  like 
other  citizens,  and  appeared  in  a  law  court  to  answer  in  a  suit 
against  him ;  and  he  always  treated  the  aged  Solon  with  deep 
respect,  despite  the  latter's  bitter  opposition.  Indeed,  he  gov- 
erned through  the  forms  of  Solon's  constitution,  and  enforced 
his  laws,  taking  care  only  to  have  his  own  friends  elected  to 
the  chief  offices,  —  more  like  the  "boss"  of  a  great  political 
"  machine  "  than  like  a  "  tyrant."  During  his  third  rule,  how- 
ever, he  did  secure  himself  by  mercenary  soldiers  and  by  ban- 
ishing many  hostile  nobles.  He  encouraged  commerce,  enlarged 
and  beautified  Athens,  built  aqueducts  and  roads,  and  drew  to 
his  court  a  brilliant  circle  of  poets,  painters,  architects,  and 
sculptors  from  all  Hellas.  The  first  complete  edition  of  the 
Homeric  poems  is  said  to  have  been  put  together  at  his  com- 
mand and  expense.     Anacreon  wrote  his  graceful  odes  at  the 


122  THE   GREEKS  — 1000   TO   600  B.C.  [§132 

Peisistratid  court,  and  Thespis  began  Greek  tragedy  at  the 
magnificent  festivals  there  instituted  to  Dionysus  (god  of  wine). 
The  public  worship  was  given  new  splendor  in  other  ways,  and 
rural  festivals  were  instituted  to  make  country  life  more  at- 
tractive. Solon's  peasant  proprietors  were  increased  in  number 
by  the  division  of  the  confiscated  estates  of  banished  nobles 
among  landless  freemen.  The  three  higher  property  classes 
paid  a  five  per  cent  income  tax  (at  first  ten  per  cent),  but  in 
return  they  were  taught  the  value  of  peace  and  order.  Attica 
was  no  longer  plundered  by  invasion  or  torn  by  dissension. 
Since  the  Athenians  could  not  yet  govern  themselves,  it  was 
well  they  had  a  Peisistratus. 

"Not  only  was  he  in  every  respect  humane  and  mild  and  ready  to 
forgive  those  who  offended,  but  in  addition  he  advanced  money  to  the 
poorer  people  to  help  them  in  their  labors. 

"For  the  same  reasons  [to  m*ake  rural  life  attractive]  he  instituted 
local  justices,  and  often  made  expeditions  in  person  into  the  country 
to  inspect  it,  and  to  settle  disputes  between  persons,  that  they  might  not 
come  to  the  city  and  neglect  their  farms.  It  was  in  one  of  these  prog- 
resses, as  the  story  goes,  that  Peisistratus  had  his  adventure  with  the 
man  in  the  district  of  Hymettus,  who  was  cultivating  the  spot  afterwards 
known  as  the  'Tax-free  Farm.'  He  saw  a  man  digging  at  very  stony 
ground  with  a  stake,  and  sent  and  asked  what  he  got  out  of  such  a  plot  of 
land.  'Aches  and  pains,'  said  the  man,  'and  out  of  these  Peisistratus 
must  get  his  tenth.'  Peisistratus  was  so  pleased  with  his  frank  speech  and 
his  industry  that  he  granted  him  exemption  from  taxes."  —  Aristotle, 
Constitution  of  Athens,  17. 

132.  Expulsion  of  the  Peisistratidae.  —  In  527,  Peisistratus 
was  succeeded  by  his  sons,  Hippias  and  Hipparchus.  The  latter 
was  murdered  because  of  a  private  grudge,  and  the  terrified 
Hippias  exchanged  his  previous  kindly  rule  for  a  cruel  and 
suspicious  policy  that  ripened  revolt.  Cleisthenes,  one  of  the 
exiled  nobles,  saw  his  opportunity.  His  family  (wealthy  even 
in  exile)  had  just  rebuilt  the  burned  temple  of  Apollo  at  Delphi 
with  much  greater  magnificence  than  the  contract  had  demanded, 
using  Parian  marble  for  the  prescribed  limestone  ;  and  now  (ac- 
cording to  Herodotus)  Cleisthenes  "bribed"  the  oracle  to  order 


§134]  ATHENS  — DEMOCRACY.  123 

the  Spartans,  whenever  they  applied  for  advice  on  any  matter, 
to  "  set  free  the  Athenians."  In  consequence  a  reluctant  Spar- 
tan army  did  finally  march  against  Hippias,  and  he  was  expelled 
in  510  B.C. 

F.   Cleisthenes  —  A  Democracy. 

133.  Vigor  of  Free  Athens.  —  The  Athenians  were  now  in  con- 
fusion again,  but  the  outcome  proved  that  they  had  gained  in 
strength  and  in  power  to  govern  themselves.  An  oligarchic  party 
that  strove  for  a  reaction  was  defeated  by  the  democrats,  led 
by  the  returned  Cleisthenes.  A  Spartan  army  restored  the  oli- 
garchs for  a  moment,  but  was  itself  soon  besieged  in  the  Acrop- 
olis, and  captured  by  the  aroused  democracy.  The  Thebans 
and  Euboeans  had  seized  what  seemed  a  time  of  confusion 
and  weakness  to  invade  Attica,  but  were  routed  by  a  double 
engagement  in  one  day.  The  Athenians  had  enjoyed  little 
fame  in  war,  "  but  now,"  says  Aristotle,  "  they  showed  that 
men  would  fight  more  bravely  for  themselves  than  for  a  mas- 
ter." Chalcis  in  Euboea  was  stormed,  and  its  trade  with 
Thrace  (§  105)  fell  to  Athens.  At  the  same  time  Athens 
began  her  special  kind  of  colonization  by  sending  four  thou- 
sand citizens  to  possess  the  best  land  of  Chalcis,  and  to  serve 
as  a  garrison  there.  These  men  retained  full  Athenian  citizen- 
ship. They  were  known  as  deruchs,  or  out-settlers.  In  this 
way  Athens  was  to  find  land  for  her  surplus  population,  to 
strengthen  her  democratic  tendencies,  and  to  fortify  her  influ- 
ence abroad  —  all  without  decreasing  her  fighting  strength. 

134.  The  Conditions  and  the  Aims  of  the  New  Constitution.  — 

During  the  war  Athens  made  fresh  strides  toward  completing 
the  work  of  Solon  by  adopting  a  more  democratic  constitution, 
proposed  by  Cleisthenes.  The  general  design  was  to  develop 
the  democratic  features  of  the  older  constitution  and  to  weaken 
the  aristocratic  ones.  It  also  aimed  to  get  rid  of  family  and 
local  faction,  and  to  strengthen  the  state  by  bringing  in  new 
citizens. 

The  tendency  to  factiousness  arose  (a)  from  the  method  of 


124  THE   GREEKS  — 1000  TO  500  B.C.  [§135 

voting  by  clans  and  tribes  in  the  Assembly,  so  that  the  clans 
rallied  voluntarily  each  around  its  clan  chief,  and  (b)  from  the 
continued  jealousy  of  Plain,  Shore,  and  Mountain. 

The  presence  of  a  non-citizen  class  needs  a  longer  explanar 
tion.  Solon's  reforms  had  concerned  tribesmen  only;  and 
probably  in  his  day  few  strangers  lived  permanently  in  Attica. 
But  in  the  intervening  ninety  years,  especially  under  the  good 
rule  of  Peisistratus,  the  growing  trade  of  Athens  had  drawn 
many  aliens  there.  These  were  men  of  enterprise  and  some- 
times of  wealth ;  but  though  they  lived  in  the  city,  they  had  no 
part  in  its  religion,  its  politics,  its  law,  or  its  society.  No 
alien  could  marry  an  Athenian  or  hold  land.  The  city  might 
find  it  pay  to  protect  his  property,  in  order  to  attract  other 
strangers  to  add  to  the  prosperity  of  the  State ;  but  he  had  no 
secure  legal  rights  of  any  kind,  because  law  was  a  matter  of 
city  and  clan  religion.  Nor  could  his  son  or  his  son's  son, 
nor  any  later  descendant,  acquire  any  of  these  rights  by 
residence  in  Athens.  Society  was  based  on  blood  relation- 
ship. By  adoption  into  an  Athenian  clan,  single  strangers 
from  time  to  time  won  positions  as  citizens ;  but  only  a  revo- 
lution could  bring  the  aliens  as  a  class  into  the  city.  The 
descendants  of  fugitives  and  f reedmen  swelled  their  numbers, 
and  discontent  might  make  them  a  danger.  Cleisthenes'  plan 
was  to  take  them  into  the  state,  and  so  make  them  strengthen  it. 

This  problem  was  not  simply  political,  like  the  question  of 
extending  the  suffrage  among  a  modern  people,  because  there 
was  a  religious  barrier  to  be  broken  down,  and  Ijecause  this 
religious  element  with  the  Greeks  was  the  soul  of  the  State. 
It  was  different,  too,  because  the  outsiders  were  asking,  not 
political  rights,  but  status,  or  legal  standing.  They  wanted 
more  secure  property  rights,  and  to  get  these,  they  had  first 
to  get  admission  into  the  religion  of  the  city. 

135.  The  Demes  and  Geographical  Tribes.  —  The  fundamental 
political  change  introduced  by  Cleisthenes  was  the  substitu- 
tion of  geographical  units  for  the  old  blood  units  (clans  and 


§136]  ATHENS  — DEMOCRACY.  125 

tribes).  This  was  tlie  soul  of  his  reform,  as  the  land  legis- 
lation was  of  Solon's.  Directly  or  indirectly,  it  made  possible 
the  correction  of  other  chief  evils.  The  plan  itself  was  very 
simple.  Attica  was  marked  off  into  a  hundred  divisions 
called  demes.  Each  citizen  was  enrolled  in  one  of  these,  and 
his  son  after  him.  Such  enrollment,  instead  of  the  old  clan 
connection,  became  the  proof  of  citizenship.  Indeed,  in  future, 
a  man  took  his  surname  from  his  deme,  and  no  longer  from 
nis  clan.  The  clan  survived  only  for  religious  and  social  pur- 
poses. In  all  political  respects  it  was  superseded  by  the  deme, 
which  became  the  unit  of  local  government  within  the  city. 
Each  deme  had  its  demarch,  or  chief,  its  deme-assembly,  and 
its  deme-treasury. 

Ten  of  these  demes  —  not  adjacent,  but  scattered  as  widely 
as  possible  so  as  to  include  the  various  local  interests  —  com- 
posed a  "  tribe,"  or  ward ;  and  these  artificial  tribes  replaced 
the  old  blood  tribes  in  the  Assembly.  By  this  arrangement, 
a  clan  —  whose  members  now  made  parts,  perhaps,  of  several 
"tribes''  —  could  no  longer  act  politically  as  a  unit.  Thus 
the  influence  of  the  clan  chiefs  declined,  and  other  citizens 
were  more  likely  to  be  chosen  to  office.  Shore  and  Mountain, 
too,  no  longer  had  distinct  rallying  points.  This  one  device 
cut  away  the  fulcrum  of  both  family  and  local  faction  and  also 
of  aristocratic  power.  It  helped  likewise  to  solve  the  more 
difficult  problem  of  admitting  the  non-citizen  class  (§  136). 

136.  The  State  Enlarged.  —  When  all  old  associations  were 
being  broken  up  and  all  citizens  were  being  distributed  in  the 
new  demes,  it  was  comparatively  easy  for  Cleisthenes  to 
accomplish  this  other  great  reform  and  to  enroll  also  the  non- 
citizen  class.  Thus  the  metics  (stranger-sojourners),  of  that 
day  became  citizens ;  and  fresh,  progressive,  democratic  influ- 
ences were  again  incorporated  into  Athenian  life. 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  outlanders  continued 
to  gain  admission  in  future,  as  with  us,  by  easy  naturalization. 
The  act  applied  only  to  those  then  in  Athens  and  to  theii 


126  THE   GREEKS  — 1000  TO  500  B.C.  [§137 

descendants.  In  a  few  years  another  metic  class  grew  up,  with 
all  the  old  disadvantages.  Such  a  class  was  a  constant  phe- 
nomenon in  the  ancient  city  democracies,  where  political  power 
always  rested  on  descent  or  adoption  except  for  some  wholesale 
revolutionary  incorporations,  like  the  one  just  described.  It  is 
true  that  now  for  a  while  the  Athenians  did  permit  intermar- 
riage with  aliens,  and  that  the  children  of  such  marriages  be- 
came full  citizens,  but  the  older  exclusive  rule  was  afterward 
restored.^ 

137.  The  Power  of  the  Assembly  was  greatly  enlarged.  Any 
citizen  might  now  introduce  new  business  directly,  and  the 
senate  was  expected  to  submit  to  the  Assembly  all  matters  of 
importance.  The  Assembly  also  elected  archons  and  other 
officers,  and  tried  them.  It  dealt  with  foreign  affairs,  taxa- 
tion, and  even  with  the  details  of  military  campaigns.  To 
be  sure,  it  took  time  for  the  Assembly  to  realize  its  full  power 
and  to  learn  how  to  control  its  various  agents,  but  its  rise  to 
supreme  authority  was  now  only  a  matter  of  natural  growth 
(§  194). 

138.  Minor  Reforms.  —  The  senate  was  enlarged  to  five  hun- 
dred —  fifty  by  lot  from  each  of  the  ten  "  tribes."  The  five 
hundred  divided  themselves  into  ten  committees  of  fifty  each, 
and  one  of  these  committees  was  always  in  session.  Ten  gen- 
erals, or  strategic  were  elected  annually  from  Solon's  first  three 
classes,  to  share  the  control  of  military  matters  with  the  pole- 
march.  The  archons  and  the  Areopagus  were  not  seriously 
affected. 

139.  Ostracism. — The  most  peculiar  and  original  device  of  Cleis- 
thenes  aimed  in  auotlier  way  to  prevent  faction.  Solon  liad  tliought  civil 
strife  inevitable,  and  had  sought  only  to  force  all  to  take  sides,  so  that  the 
bad  man  might  not  win  through  the  indifference  of  the  multitude.  Cleis- 
thenes  tried  by  ingenious  means  to  head  off  civil  strife  altogether.     Once 


1  Advanced  students  will  find  an  excellent  brief  discussion  of  "  citizenship" 
under  the  Cleisthenian  constitution  in  Botsford's  Athenian  Constitution, 
198-199. 


§139]  ATHENS  —  DEMOCRACY.  127 

a  year  the  Assembly  was  given  a  chance  to  vote  by  ballot  (on  pieces  of 
pottery,  "ostraka"),  each  one  against  any  man  whom  he  deemed  danger- 
ous to  the  State.  If  six  thousand  votes  were  cast,  the  man  receiving  the 
largest  number  went  into  honorable  exile  for  ten  years.  The  plan  was 
abused  by  politicians  to  remove,  not  dangerous  men,  but  personal  rivals, 
and  was  dropped  after  about  a  century.  Only  three  or  four  cities  ever 
imitated  it.i 

References  for  Further  Reading.  — For  the  overthrow  of  kingship 
at  Athens,  see  Aristotle's  Constitution  of  Athens  and  references  at  the 
close  of  Division  V. 

For  reforms  during  Solon's  time  the  young  student  can  hardly  read 
widely  to  advantage.  Plutarch's  Solon  may  be  used.  For  advanced  stu- 
dents, Gilbert's  Constitutional  Antiquities^  95-142,  is  the  best  modern 
discussion  ;  Botsford's  Athenian  Constitution  is  valuable ;  Aristotle's  is 
the  oldest  work.  Much  valuable  matter  will  be  found  in  the  following 
works: — Oman,  chs.  xi.  xii.  ;  Holm,  I.  ch.  xxvi.  ;  Abbott,  I.  ch.  xiii.  ; 
Curtius,  bk,  ii.  ch.  ii.  ;  Grote,  III.  chs.  x.  xi.  ;  Greenidge,  ch.  vi. 

For  the  Peisistratidae,  references  for  the  Tyrants  at  close  of  Division  V. 
Also  Curtius,  bk.  ii.  ch.  ii.  ;  Oman,  ch.  xii. ;  Holm,  I.  ch.  xxvii.  ;  Grote, 
ch.  xxx. 

For  Cleisthenes,  Grote,  ch.  xxxi. ;  Gilbert,  145-153. 

Topics.  —  1.  Pittacus  of  Mitylene  ;  comparison  with  Solon.  2.  Phei- 
don  of  Argos.        3.   Was  the  Greek  tyrant  a  good  or  an  evil  ? 

SUGGESTION     FOR    TABULAR    REVIEW    OF     ATHENIAN 
CONSTITUTIONS. 

Let  the  class  complete  the  tables  on  page  128,  and  make  others  for  the 
constitution  of  Cleisthenes.  Use  the  same  device  later  for  the  constitution 
at  the  time  of  Pericles. 

Legislation,  it  must  be  understood,  is  not  an  ordinary  function  of 
government  until  a  late  period  when  society  has  become  highly  complex. 
In  the  early  period,  men  expect  to  make  new  laws,  if  at  all,  only  through 
some  legislative  dictator  like  Solon.  The  column  for  legislation  in  these 
tables  must  be  left  blank  for  all  early  constitutions  ;  in  Athens,  until  the 
time  of  Pericles. 


1  But  see  Greta's  defense  of  party  use  of  ostracism  in  Athens  in  the  next 
century.  Grote's  argument  is  a  good  subject  for  a  report  by  a  student,  in  con- 
nection with  the  later  Athenian  history.  Note  also  Grote's  view  as  to  the 
number  of  votes  required,  and  see  Aristotle  for  the  statement  in  the  text. 


128 


THE   GREEKS  — 1000  TO   500   B.C. 


[§139 


EuPATRiD  Constitution. 


Elements. 

LEGlSLATIOiN. 

Judicatory. 

Administration. 

Eeligion. 

Archons,  9;  elect- 
ed annually  from 
and  by  the  Eupa- 
trids. 

• 

"The  Archon" 
is  chief  judge; 
the  six  lesser 
archons  assist. 

"The  Archon" 
is  chief  civil 
administrator. 
War  archon  is 
leader  in  war. 

King  Archon 
is  high  priest 
of  the  State. 

Areopagus— a  life- 
council    of     the 
Eupatrids. 

An     important 
tribunal. 

General  over- 
sight. 

General  over- 
sight. 

Assembly— Athe- 
nian tribesmen. 

Meets  for  mili- 
tary purposes. 

Meets  for  re- 
ligious pur- 
poses. 

Constitution  of  Solon. 


Elements. 

Legislation. 

Judicatory. 

Administration. 

Religion. 

Archons,  9 ;  elect- 
ed annually  from 
the  first  class  by 
Assembly. 

As  before. 

As  before. 

As  before. 

Areopagus  —  Ex- 
archons,  for  life- 

Fill  in. 

Fill  in. 

Fill  in. 

Senate,    400;    100 
from  each  tribe, 
chosen   annually 
by  lot  from  the 
higher  classes. 

Fill  in. 

Assembly  —  Athe- 
nian   tHbesmen, 
arranged  in  four 
property  classes. 

Fill  in. 

Fill  in. 

§  141]  INTELLECTUAL   DEVELOPMENT.  129 

Exercises:  Questions  on  the  Constitutions.  —  For  the  Eupatrid 
constitution.  —  1.  What  in  this  constitution  represents  the  monarchic 
element  of  Homer's  time  ?  2.  What  the  aristocratic  ?  3.  What  the 
democratic  ?  4.  Which  element  has  made  a  decided  gain  in  power  ? 
5.  Which  has  lost  most  ?  6.  Which  of  the  three  is  least  important  ? 
7.  Which  most  important  ?  8.  What  is  the  basis  of  citizenship  ? 
9.  What  is  the  basis  for  the  distribution  of  power  among  those  who  are 
citizens  ?  - 

For  the  constitution  of  Solon.^  —  1.  What  is  the  basis  of  citizenship  ? 
^.  What  is  the  basis  for  distribution  of  power  among  the  citizens  ? 
3.  Was  the  introduction  of  the  senate  a  gain  for  the  aristocratic  or  demo- 
cratic element  ?  4.  What  powers  did  the  Assembly  gain  ?  5.  Which 
two  of  these  powers  enabled  the  Assembly  to  control  the  administration  ? 

VIIL    INTELLECTUAL   DEVELOPMENT  AND   SOCIAL  LIFE. 

This  brilliant,  jostling  society,  which  had  just  awakened  to  national 
consciousness,  which  had  been  sowing  Hellenic  cities  broadcast  along  the 
Mediterranean  shores,  and  which  was  now  developing  political  democracy, 
was  marked  also  jy  new  forms  of  intellectual  activity. 

140.  Architecture,  Painting,  and  Sculpture,  all  began  to  show 
a  Greek  character,  though  none  of  them  yet  reached  full  bloom. 
The  chief  centers  of  such  arts  in  this  period  were  Miletus  and 
Ephesus  in  Ionia,  and  Athens  under  Peisistratus. 

141.  Lyric  Poetry.  —  In  poetry  there  was  a  more  complete 
development.  Verse  is  older  than  prose ;  and  in  this  age  Solon 
argued  his  politics,  and  Thales  his  philosophy,  in  verse.  This 
section,  however,  is  concerned  with  that  poetry  which  is  more 
properly  literature. 

The  earlier  Greek  poetry  had  been  made  up  of  narrative  bal- 
lads, celebrating  wars  and  heroes,  sung  by  wandering  bards 
and  harpers.  The  form  and  meter  were  simple  and  uniform. 
The  longer  and  greater  of  such  compositions  rose  to  epic  poetry, 
of  which  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  were  the  great  examples.  Their 
epoch  is  called  the  Epic  Age. 

1  Students  should  be  able  to  answer  similar  questions  on  the  later  constitu- 
tions of  Athens ;  and  it  would  be  a  good  exercise  for  the  class  to  make  out  the 
questions  for  themselves. 


130  THE  GREEKS  — 1000  TO  500  B.C.  [§141 

In  contrast,  the  seventh  and  sixth  centuries  are  styled  the 
Lyric  Age,  The  prevailing  poetry  consisted  of  odes  and  songs 
in  a  great  variety  of  complex  meters  —  expressive  of  the  more 
varied  life  of  the  time.  These  poems  (to  be  accompanied  by 
the  lyre)  were  descriptive  of  feelings  rather  than  of  outward 
events.  Love  and  pleasure  are  the  common  themes;  and,  if 
a  story  is  told  at  all,  it  is  always  in  order  to  appeal  to  some 
emotion.  The  more  famous  poet^  of  the  period  are  grouped 
below. 

a.  Lyric  and  Elegiac  Poets.  —  Seventh  and  sixth  centuries. 

From  Lesbos  :  Alcaeus ;  Arion,  patronized  by  Periander,  tyrant  of  Cor- 
inth ;  Sappho,  whom  the  ancients  were  wont  to  designate  simply  "the 
poetess,"  just  as  they  referred  to  Homer  as  "the  poet"  ;  Terpander. 

From  Ceos :  Simonides,  whose  odes  incited  to  Hellenic  patriotism,  and 
who  lived  over  into  the  next  age. 

From  Teos :  Anacreon  (§  131). 

From  Paros :  Archilochus,  who  wrote  war  songs. 

From  Ephesus :  Callinus. 

From  Attica  (?) :  Tyrtaeus,  a  war  poet  at  Sparta  in  the  Second  Mes- 
senian  War. 

From  Ionia  (?),  but  living  at  Sparta:  Alcman. 

From  Sicily :  Stesichorus. 

From  Megara:   TTieognis,  poet  of  the  oligarchs  against  the  people. 

From  Boeotia :  Corinna,  a  woman ;  and  Pindar,  who  belongs  also  to  the 
next  age. 

Pindar  was  a  Theban  noble,  and  was  accounted  the  greatest  Greek 
lyric  poet.  Professor  Jebb  says  of  him  (Primer,  68) :  "The  glory  of  his 
song  has  passed  forever  from  the  world,  with  the  sound  of  the  rolling  har- 
monies on  which  it  once  was  borne,  with  the  splendor  of  rushing  chariots 
and  athletic  forms  around  which  it  threw  its  radiance, ^  with  the  white- 
pillared  cities  of  the  Aegean  in  which  it  wrought  its  spell,  with  the  beliefs 
and  joys  which  it  ennobled  ;  but  those  who  love  his  poetry,  and  who  strive 
to  enter  into  its  high  places,  can  still  know  that  they  breathe  a  pure  and 
bracing  air,  and  can  still  feel  vibrating  through  a  clear,  calm  sky  the  strong 
pulse  of  an  eagle's  wings,  as  he  soars  with  steady  eyes  against  the  sun." 

6.  Other  Poets.  —  Hesiod  (eighth  century),  from  Boeotia:  poetic  his- 
tory of  creation  and  of  the  gods  (Theogony),  and  didactic  poems  on 

1  Pindar  delighted  to  celebrate  the  victors  in  the  Olympic  contests. 


§  142]  INTELLECTUAL   DEVELOPMENT.  131 

agriculture  in  the  different  seasons  ( Works  and  Days) ;  Thespis,  of 
Megara,  who  under  patronage  of  Peisistratus  at  Athens  begins  dramatic 
poetry  (which  was  to  be  the  characteristic  form  of  literature  in  the  next 
century  and  was  to  remain  centered  at  Athens). 

Exercises.  —  From  the  names  in  the  table  above,  what  part  of  Hellas 
seems  foremost  in  culture  ?  (Note  that  Alcman  and  Tyrtaeus,  whatever 
their  origin,  are  the  first  and  last  poets  of  Sparta.)  Look  up  the  legend 
regarding  Tyrtaeus  in  both  ancient  and  modern  authorities,  and  observe 
the  later  views  regarding  it  (as  in  Mahaffy).  Give  brief  accounts  of  Sappho 
and  Alcaeus. 

142.  Philosophy.  —  It  was  in  the  sixth  century,  too,  that  Greek 
philosophy  was  born.  Its  home  was  in  Ionia.  There  first  the 
Greek  mind  set  out  fearlessly  and  systematically  to  explain 
the  origin  of  things.  Tholes  of  Miletus,  "  father  of  Greek  phi- 
losophy," taught  that  all  things  came  from  Water,  or  moisture. 
His  pupil  Anaximines  substituted  Air  for  Water  as  the  univer- 
sal first  principle.  Pythagoras,  born  at  Samos,  but  teaching  in 
Magna  Graecia,  sought  the  fundamental  principle,  not  in  a  kind 
of  matter,  but  in  Kumber,  or  harmony.  Xenophanes  of  Ionia, 
but  also  living  in  Italy,  affirmed  that  the  only  real  existence 
was  that  of  God,  one  and  changeless  —  "neither  in  body  like 
unto  mortals,  neither  in  mind  " ;  the  changing  world,  he  said, 
did  not  exist ;  it  was  only  a  deception  of  men's  senses.  To 
Heracleitus  of  Ephesus,  on  the  other  hand,  ceaseless  change 
itself  was  the  very  principle  of  things ;  the  world  had  evolved 
from  a  fiery  ether,  and  was  in  constant  flux.  Heracleitus  lived 
on  well  into  the  fifth  century,  and  was  the  last  of  the  great 
Ionian  philosophers. 

This  early  speculative  philosophy  was  closely  related  to 
early  science.  Thales  was  the  first  Greek  to  predict  eclipses. 
Aiiaximander  of  Miletus  (whose  philosophical  doctrines  are  too 
abstruse  to  deal  with  here)  made  maps  and  globes.  The  Pythag- 
oreans naturally  paid  special  attention  to  Geometry,  and  to 
Pythagoras  is  ascribed  the  famous  demonstration  regarding 
the  square  on  the  hypothenuse  of  a  triangle.  His  followers 
had  many  mystical  ideas,  but  they  were  the  first  to  regard 


132  THE   GREEKS  — 1000   TO   600  B.C.  [§143 

Philosophy  as  a  guide  to  human  life.  The  harmony  in  the 
material  universe  must  be  matched,  they  held,  by  a  harmony 
in  the  soul  of  man. 

143.  Religion  and  Morality.  —  The  two  religions,  of  the  clan 
and  of  Olympus,  have  been  briefly  described.  Neither  had 
much  to  do  with  conduct  toward  men  until  the  later  moral 
sense  of  the  people  put  morality  into  them  and  explained  away, 
as  allegorical,  the  old  immoral  stories  of  the  gods. 

Such  a  divorce  of  religion  and  morality  is  common  among 
early  peoples.  The  Greek  moral  ideas  are  to  be  sought  in  their 
philosophy,  literature,  and  history,  rather  than  in  their  theol- 
ogy. Their  good  sense  and  clear  intellect  had  freed  their  re- 
ligion from  the  grossest  features  of  Oriental  worship,  but  it 
kept  traces  of  its  savage  origin  in  the  habits  of  bedaubing  and 
torturing  initiates,  in  the  drunkenness  and  indecency  of  the 
Bacchic  festivals,  and  in  various  features  of  the  "  Mysteries," 
though  these  things  were  now  overlaid  by  more  refined  ideas. 

The  early  Greeks  believed  in  a  place  of  terrible  punishment 
for  a  few  great  offenders  against  the  gods  (Odyssey,  xi.  577  ff.), 
and  in  an  Elysium  of  supreme  pleasure  for  a  very  few  others 
particularly  favored  by  the  gods.  For  the  mass  of  men,  how- 
ever, the  future  life  was  to  be  "a  washed-out  copy  of  the  bril- 
liant life  on  earth"  —  its  pleasures  and  pains  both  shadowy. 
Thus  Ulysses  meets  Achilles  in  the  home  of  the  dead :  — 

"And  he  knew  me  straightway  when  he  had  drunk  the  dark  blood; 
yea,  and  he  wept  aloud,  and  shed  big  tears  as  he  stretched  forth  his  hands 
in  his  longing  to  reach  me.  But  it  might  not  be,  for  he  had  now  no  stead- 
fast strength  nor  power  at  all  in  moving,  such  as  was  aforetime  in  his 
supple  limbs.  .  .  .  But  lo,  other  spirits  of  the  dead  that  be  departed 
stood  sorrowing,  and  each  one  asked  of  those  that  were  dear  to  them."  — 
Odyssey,  xi.  390  ff. 

And  in  their  discourse,  Achilles  exclaims  sorrowfully :  — 

*'  Nay,  speak  not  comfortably  to  me  of  death,  O  great  Ulysses.  Rather 
would  I  live  on  ground  as  the  hireling  of  another,  even  with  a  lack-land 
man  who  had  no  great  livelihood,  than  bear  sway  among  all  the  dead." 


§143]  SOCIAL  LIFE.  133 

Later  philosophers,  like  Socrates,  rose  to  higher  conceptions ; 
but  for  most  Greeks,  even  in  the  best  periods,  the  future  life 
remained  unreal  and  unimportant.  The  remarkable  quotations 
given  below  (§§  149,  150)  represent  the  mountain  peaks,  not 
the  general  level,  of  Greek  thought  on  this  subject.^ 

The  Greeks  accepted  frankly  the  search  for  pleasure  as  natu- 
ral and  proper.  Self-sacrifice  had  little  place  in  their  ideal ; 
and  Christianity,  in  its  aspect  as  a  worship  of  divine  sorrow, 
IS  altogether  foreign  to  their  ideas.  They  were  moved,  not 
by  the  Christian  spiritual  passion  for  the  beauty  of  holiness, 
but  by  an  intellectual  perception  of  the  beauty  of  moderation 
and  temperance. 

Individual  characters  at  once  lofty  and  lovable  were  not 
numerous.  No  society  ever  produced  so  many  great  men,  but 
many  societies  have  produced  better  men.  Greek  excellence 
was  intellectual  rather  than  moral.  Trickery  and  wily  deceit 
mark  most  of  the  greatest  names,  and  not  even  physical  or 
moral  bravery  can  be  called  a  national  characteristic. 

At  the  same  time,  a  few  individuals  do  tower  to  great  heights, 
though  those  heights  were  very  different  from  the  nobler  ideals 
of  modern  society;  and  a  few  Greek  teachers  give  us  some  of  the 
noblest  morality  of  the  world.  Says  MahafPy  {Social  Greece,  8), 
after  acknowledging  the  cruelty  and  barbarity  of  Greek  life :  — 

''Socrates  andr-Plato  are  far  superior  to  the  Jewish  moralists ;  they  are 
superior  to  the  average  Christian  moralist ;  it  is  only  in  the  matchless 
teaching  of  Christ  himself  that  we  find  them  surpassed." 

References  for  Further  Reading  upon  Literature  and  Philoso- 
phy.—  Jebb's  Primer  of  Greek  Literature ;  Mahaffy's  History  of  Greek 
Literature  ;  Marshall's  Short  History  of  Greek  Philosophy ;  and  the  treat- 
ment in  the  standard  histories  — Grote,  Curtius,  Abbott,  Holm. 


1  It  has  been  supposed  sometimes  that  the  Orphic  mysteries  over  Greece 
and  the  Eleusinian  mysteries  at  Athens  taught  the  initiates  a  higher  faith 
in  immortality ;  but  no  sufficient  evidence  of  this  appears  anywhere.  On  the 
"  Mysteries,"  advanced  students  may  consult  Grant,  Age  of  Pericles,  ch.  ii,, 
and  Lenormant  in  the  Contemporary  Review  for  1880,  May,  July,  and  Sep- 
tember- 


134  THE   GREEKS  — 1000  TO   600  B.C.  [§144 

IX.    ILLUSTRATIVE  EXTRACTS.   (Mostly  from  the  fifth  century.) 

144.  Odyssey,  xiv.  83-84.  —  "  Verily,  the  blessed  gods  love  not  fro- 
ward  deeds,  but  they  reverence  justice  and  the  righteous  acts  of  men." 

145.  From  Theognis.  —  "I  will  teach  you,  Cyrnus,  a  lesson  which 
as  a  child  I  learned  from  the  good :  '  Never,  for  the  honor,  or  excellence, 
or  wealth,  that  may  come  of  it,  do  aught  that  is  base,  or  shameful,  or 
unjust.' " 

"Never  taunt  a  poor  man  with  his  poverty:  God  gives  wealth  as  he 
will ;  a  man  may  be  very  rich  and  very  base,  but  virtue  is  the  portion  of 
the  few." 

"  We  live  like  children,  and  the  Almighty  plan  controls  the  fro  ward 
children  of  weak  men." 

146.  From  Menander  (a  later  period).  —  "He  is  the  best  man 
who  knows  how  to  control  himself  when  injured,  for  this  hot  temper  and 
bitterness  is  evidence  of  a  little  mind." 

"Prefer  to  be  injured  rather  than  to  injure." 

147.  From  Aeschylus  (§  205). 

"  The  lips  of  Zeus  know  not  to 'speak  a  lying  speech, 
But  will  perform  each  single  word." 

"  I  think  not  any  of  the  gods  is  bad." 

"Justice  shines  in  smoke-grimed  bouses  and  holds  in  regard  the  life 
that  is  righteous  ;  she  leaves  with  averted  eyes  the  gold-bespangled  palace 
Mrhich  is  unclean,  and  goes  to  the  abode  that  is  holy." 

148.  From  Sophocles  (§  205). 

"Nor  did  I  deem  thy  edicts  strong  enough 
That  thou,  a  mortal  man,  should'st  overpass 
The  unwritten  laws  of  God  that  know  no  change." 

149.  Socrates  (§  207),  to  his  Judges  after  his  condemnation 
to  death.     (Plato's  Apology.) 

"Wherefore,  O  judges,  be  of  good  cheer  about  death,  and  know  this 
of  a  truth  —  that  no  evil  can  happen  to  a  good  man,  either  in  life  or  after 
death.  He  and  his  ?ire  not  neglected  by  the  gods.  .  .  .  The  hour  of 
departure  has  arrived,  and  we  go  our  ways  — I  to  die,  you  to  live. 
Which  is  better,  God  only  knows." 


§  151]  ILLUSTRATIVE   EXTRACTS.  135 

150.  From  Plato's  Republic  (§  207).  —  "My  counsel  is  that  we 
hold  fast  ever  to  the  heavenly  way  and  follow  justice  and  virtue,  consider- 
ing that  the  soul  is  immortal  and  able  to  endure  every  sort  of  good  and 
every  sort  of  evil.  Thus  we  shall  live  dear  to  one  another  and  to  the  gods, 
both  while  remaining  here,  and  when,  like  conquerors  in  the  games,  we 
go  to  receive  our  reward." 

151.  A  Prayer  of  Socrates  (from  Plato's  Phaedrus).  —  "Be- 
loved Pan,  and  all  ye  other  gods  who  haunt  this  place,  give  me  beauty  in 

H-he  inward  soul ;  and  may  the  outward  and  inward  man  be  at  one.  May 
I  reckon  the  wise  to  be  the  wealthy,  and  may  I  have  such  a  quantity  of 
gold  as  none  but  the  temperate  can  carry." 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE  PERSIAN   ATTACK. 
I.    A  NEW  ERA. 

152.  Expanding  Greece  thrown  back  upon  Itself.  —  In  the  sixth 
century  this  bustling,  aggressive  Greek  world  had  seemed 
on  the  point  of  conquering  the  East  merely  by  diffusing  its 
influence  through  all  lands.  The  expansion  of  Greek  colonies 
has  been  noted ;  but  the  movement  vfas  wider  than  mere  coloni- 
zation. Greek  cities  were  formed  within  the  ancient  monarchy 
of  Egypt ;  Greek  mercenaries  upheld  the  throne  of  the  Pha- 
raohs, and  at  the  same  time  made  the  strength  of  the  armies 
of  Babylon  and  Lydia;  even  the  commerce  of  the  East  was 
passing  from  Phoenician  to  Greek  hands. 

Fortunately  this  process  was  arrested  before  the  Greek 
genius  was  too  much  weakened  and  diluted.  Now  came  an 
event  which  severed  the  Greek  world  from  Asia  and  threw  it 
back  upon  Europe,  to  develop  more  fully  its  distinctive  Euro- 
pean'traits  before  it  again  entered  Asia.  Persia  within  half  a 
century  had  absorbed  four  great  empires,  —  Media,  Babylon, 
Egypt,  and  Lydia  (§  69).  Next  it  attacked  the  little,  strag- 
gling, disunited  Greek  states. 

153.  The  Subdivisions  of  the  Epoch.  —  The  contest  fills  two 
hundred  years  and  falls  into  three  periods.  In  the  first  (500-479 
B.C.,  the  period  of  this  chapter),  the  European  Hellenes  are 
on  the  defensive.  In  the  second  and  longest  period  (479- 
338  B.C.),  the  struggle  is  fitful,  and  concerns  the  freedom  of 
the  Asiatic  Greeks.  In  the  third  period  (338-323  b.c),  Hellas 
—  her  civilization  now  perfected  —  conquers   and   Hellenizes 

136 


§  156]  CONDITIONS  FOR  RESISTANCE.  137 

Asia.  In  all  this  time  the  relations  with  Persia  dominate 
Greek  politics. 

To  a  Still  broader  view,  these  two  centuries  of  conflict  appear 
only  as  an  opening  episode  in  a  struggle  between  East  and 
West  that  has  gone  on  ever  since  —  with  the  Mohammedan 
attack,  the  crusades,  the  Tartar  invasion,  and  the  "eternal 
Eastern  Question  "  of  our  own  time,  for  later  phases. 

II.    CONDITIONS  FOR  RESISTANCE  TO  PERSIA. 

154.  Three  Sections  of  Hellas  were  prominent  in  power  and 
culture :  the  European  peninsula  (which  we  may  call  Greece), 
Asiatic  Hellas  with  the  coast  islands,  and  Magna  Graecia. 
Elsewhere  the  cities  were  too  scattered,  or  too  small,  or  too 
busy  with  their  own  defense  against  surrounding  savages,  to  be 
of  great  significance  for  the  approaching  contest.  Asiatic  Greece 
was  already  subject  to  Persia.  The  two  other  sections  were 
now  to  be  attacked  simultaneously  by  Persia  and  Cai-thage 
respectively. 

155.  Magna  Graecia  and  Carthage.  —  Carthage,  on  the  north 
coast  of  Africa,  was  a  colony  of  Phoenicia.  It  had  built  up  a 
great  empire  of  an  Oriental  nature,  and  was  now  about  to  try 
to  seize  Sicily.  That  island,  bringing  Africa  and  Europe 
within  reach  of  each  other,  was  an  important  point  from  which 
to  control  Mediterranean  trade.  The  Greek  cities  in  Sicily 
and  Italy  were  ruled  by  tyrants;  and  thpse,  uniting  under 
Oelon  of  Syracuse,'  were  to  meet  the  Carthaginian  onset  success- 
fully with  their  armies  of  discipline^  mercenaries.  That  story 
need  not  be  told  in  detail. 

156.  Greece:  Wars,  Class  Strife,  the  Peloponnesian  League. — 

In  Greece,  small  as  the  forces  seemed  that  coul^  be  mustered 
against  the  master  of  the  world,  they  were  further  wasted  and 
divided  in  internal  struggles.  Athens  was  at  war  with  Aegina 
and  with  Thebes ;  Sparta  had  renewed  the  ancient  strife  with 
Argos,  and  had  crippled  her  for  a  generation  by  slaying  in  one 


138  THE  PERSIAN  ATTACK.  [§  156 

battle  almost  the  whole  body  -of  adult  Argives ;  ^  and  Phocis 
was  engaged  in  a  wasting  struggle  with  Thessalians  on  one 
side  and  with  Boeotians  on  the  other. 

Worse  than  all  this,  domestic  strife  tore  individual  cities. 
The  disappearance  of  the  tyrants  had  been  followed  every- 
where by  fresh  feuds  between  classes.  The  oligarchs  were 
often  of  Dorian  descent,  while  the  democracies  commonly  wore 
of  the  conquered  Ionic  blood.  Dorian  Sparta  had  interfered 
many  times  in  the  "  age  of  tyrants"  to  drive  out  those  oppress- 
ors of  the  oligarchs,  and  now  she  continued  to  support  the 
oligarchs  against  the  democracies. 

Sparta  was  in  a  sense  the  head  of  Greece.  She  lacked  the 
enterprise  and  daring  that  were  to  make  Athens  the  city  of 
the  coming  century ;  but  her  government  was  firm,  her  army 
was  large  and  disciplined,  and  so  far  she  had  shown  more 
genius  than  any  other  Greek  state,  in  organizing  her  neighbors 
into  a  military  league.  Two  fifths  of  the  Peloponnesus  she 
ruled  directlj'',  and  all  the  other  cities  of  the  peninsula,  except 
Argos,  including  Corinth  and  Megara  on  the  Isthmus,  formed 
a  war-confederacy  of  which  Sparta  was  the  center.  The  union 
was  very  slight,  it  is  true.  On  special  occasions,  at  the  call  of 
Sparta,  the  states  sent  deputies  to  a  conference  to  discuss  peace 
or  war ;  but  there  was  no  constitution,  no  common  treasury, 
not  even  a  general  treaty.  Each  state  was  bound  to  Sparta  by 
its  separate  treaty,  and  in  case  of  war  it  was  expected  to  main- 
tain a  certain  number  of  troops  for  the  confederate  army  ;  but 
the  union  was  so  loose  that  the  separate  cities  might,  and  did, 
make  war  upon  each  other  inside  the  league.  Still,  this  Pelo- 
ponnesian  League  was  unquestionably  the  greatest  war  power 
in  Hellas,  and  it  afforded  the  one  rallying-point  for  disunited 
Greece  in  the  coming  struggle  with  the  Barbarian. 

1  The  old  men  and  boys,  however,  sufficed  to  defend  Argos  itself  against 
any  possible  Spartan  attack.  This  touches  an  important  fact  in  Greek  war- 
fare :  a  walled  city  could  hardly  be  taken  by  assault ;  it  could  fall  only 
through  extreme  carelessness,  or  by  treachery  or  starvation ;  and  the  last 
danger  did  not  often  exist,  because  the  citizen  armies  of  the  besiegers  could 
not  keep  the  field  long  themselves. 


§  158J  THE   IONIC   REVOLT.  139 

III.    THE  IONIC  REVOLT. 

157.  The  Condition  of  the  Asiatic  Greeks.  —  Croesus  (§  68) 
became  king  of  Lydia  in  the  same  year  in  which  Peisistratus 
became  tyrant  of  Athens.  He  soon  added  to  his  kingdom  all 
the  Greek  cities  of  Asia  Minor.  To  this  time,  the  Asiatic 
Hellenes  had  excelled  all  other  branches  of  the  race  in  cul- 
ture. The  names  in  §§  140-141  show  their  preeminence  in 
letters  and  science.  Luxury  and  refinement  were  developed 
among  them,  and  to  these  qualities  their  failure  to  maintain 
their  independence  is  sometimes  ascribed;  but  it  seems  un- 
likely that  European  Greeks  themselves  could  have  preserved 
their  liberty,  had  they  dwelt  in  so  close  vicinity  to  the  great 
Asiatic  empires. 

Croesus  had  favored  his  Greek  subjects,  and  they  aided  him 
cordially  against  Persia  (§  69).  When  he  was  overthrown,  the 
Greek  cities  continued  their  resistance.  They  applied  in  vain 
to  Sparta  for  aid.^  Then  Tholes,  the  philosopher,  at  a  council 
of  the  Ionian  Greeks,  urged  a  federation.  The  Greeks  could 
not  rise  to  so  wise  a  plan.  Some  of  the  people  emigrated  to 
found  free  colonies ;  ^  but  the  cities  fell  one  by  one  to  Cyrus, 
and  under  Persian  despotism  their  old  superiority  over  other 
Greeks  soon  vanished. 

158.  The  Revolt ;  Athenian  Aid.  —  Before  the  conquest  by 
Persia,  the  Ionian  cities  had  begun  to  get  rid  of  tyrants  ;  but 
the  Persians  set  them  up  everywhere  again,  as  the  easiest 
means  of  control.  In  the  year  500  B.C.,  however,  by  a  general 
rising,  the  lonians  deposed  their  tyrants  and  broke  into  revolt 
against  Persia.  Another  appeal  to  Sparta  proved  fruitless ; 
but  Athens  sent  them  twenty  ships,  and  little  Eretria  sent  five. 
The  allies  took  Sardis,  the  old  capital  of  Lydia,  and  were  then 
joined  by  the  other  Asiatic  Greeks.  But  treachery  and  mutual 
suspicion  were  rampant ;  Persian  gold  was  used  skillfully ;  and 

1  Read  the  story  in  Herodotus,  i.  152, 153. 

2  Special  report :  the  story  of  Phocaea. 


140  THE   PERSIAN  ATTACK.  [§  159 

one  defeat  broke  up  the  league,  after  which  the  cities  were 
again  subdued,  one  by  one,  in  the  four  years  following. 

IV.     THE  FIRST  TWO  ATTACKS  UPON  GREECE,  492-490  B.C. 

159.  Relation  to  the  Ionian  Revolt.  —  According  to  legend, 
the  Persian  attack  upon  European  Greece  was  caused  directly 
by  the  desire  to  punish  Athens  for  sending  aid  to  the  Ionian 
rebels.  No  doubt  Athens  was  pointed  out  by  this  act  for 
special  vengeance ;  but  the  Persian  invasion  would  have  come 
in  any  case,  and  would  have  come  some  years  sooner  had  the 
war  in  Ionia  not  occupied  the  Persians.  Their  steadily  ex- 
panding frontier  had  reached  Thessaly  just  before  500  B.C., 
and  the  same  motives  that  had  carried  their  arms  through 
Thrace  and  Macedonia  would  have  carried  them  on  into  Greece 
(§  69).  The  real  significance  of  the  Ionian  war  was  that  it 
helped  to  delay  the  main  Persian  onset  until  the  Greeks  were 
better  prepared. 

160.  The  Call  for  Earth  and  Water. — Now  that  the  Ionian 
disturbance  was  over,  the  Persian  advance  began  again.  Her- 
alds appeared  in  the  cities  of  Greece  to  demand  "  earth  and 
water,"  in  token  of  submission  to  the  Great  King.  The  island 
states  yielded  at  oncfe ;  in  continental  Greece  in  general  the 
demand  was  quietly  refused ;  but  at  Athens  and  Sparta,  de- 
spite the  sacred  character  of  all  ambassadors,  the  messengers 
were  thrown  at  the  one  city  into  a  pit,  and  at  the  other  into  a 
well,  to  "  take  thence  what  they  wanted." 

161.  Marathon.  —  The  first  great  attack  came  by  way  of 
Thrace,  and  was  rendered  harmless  by  a  storm :  the  Persian 
fleet  accompanying  the  army  was  shattered  on  the  rocks  of 
Mount  Athos.  Two  years  later,  Darius  sent  a  second  expedi- 
tion directly  across  the  Aegean.  Eretria  was  captured,  through 
treachery,  and  her  citizens  sent  in  chains  to  Persia.  Then  the 
armament  landed  at  the  plain  of  Marathon  in  Attica,  to  punish 
the  greater  city  that  had  dared  to  send  troops  to  Asia.    From  the 


§  162]  FIRST  TWO  ATTACKS  UPON   GREECE.  141 

rising  ground  where  the  hills  of  Pentelicus  meet  the  plain,  the 
ten  thousand  Athenian  hoplites  faced  the  Persian  host  for 
the  first  struggle  between  Greeks  and  Asiatics  on  European 
ground.  A  swift  runner  had  run  the  hundred  and  fifty  miles 
of  rugged  hill  country  to  implore  the  promised  aid  from  Sparta, 
reaching  that  city  on  the  second  day  ;  but  the  Spartans  waited 
a  week,  on  the  ground  that  an  old  law  forbade  them  to  set  out 
ion  a  military  expedition  before  the  full  moon.^  The  Boeotian 
city  of  Plataea,  however,  remembering  how  Athens  had  pro- 
tected it  against  Thebes,  joined  the  little  Greek  army  with  its 
full  strength  of  a  thousand  hoplites.  Without  other  help,  the 
Athenians  won  a  marvelous  victory  over  ten  times  their  num- 
ber of  the  most  famous  soldiery  in  the  world.  The  result  was 
due  to  the  generalship  of  Miltiades,  the  Athenian  commander, 
and  to  the  superior  equipment  of  the  Greek  hoplites.  The 
charge  of  their  dense  array,  with  long,  outstretched  spears,  by 
its  sheer  weight  broke  the  light-armed  Persian  lines,  utterly 
unprepared  for  conflict  on  such  terms.  The  darts  and  light 
scimeters  of  the  Persians  made  little  impression  upon  the 
heavy  bronze  armor  of  the  Greeks,  while  linen  tunics  and 
wicker  shields  counted  for  little  against  the  thrust  of  the 
Greek  spear.  One  hundred  and  ninety-two  Athenians  fell. 
The  Persians  left  over  sixty-four  hundred  dead  upon  the 
field.2 

162.  Moral  Importance  of  Marathon.  —  Natural  as  the  result 
came  to  seem  in  later  times,  it  took  high  courage  at  that  day 
to  stand  before  the  hitherto  unconquered  Persians,  even  with- 
out such  adverse  odds.  "The  Athenians,"  says  Herodotus, 
"were  the  first  of  the  Greeks  to  face  the  Median  garments, 
.  .  .  whereas  up  to  this  time  the  very  name  of  Mede  had  been 
a  terror  to  the  Hellenes."     Athens  broke  the  spell,  and  grew 


1  For  the  sincerity  of  the  Spartan  excuse,  see  Grote,  IV.  463-464,  and  Holm, 
II.  26,  note  9.    Read  Browning's  poem,  Pheidippides. 

2  Special  reports :  plan  and  story  of  the  battle ;  discussion  as  to  the  Persian 
numbers. 


142  THE   PERSIAN   ATTACK,  [§  163 

herself  to  heroic  stature  in  an  hour.  The  memory  of  Marathon 
became  the  richest  inheritance  of  the  Athenians,  and  inspired 
them  to  daring  enterprise.  The  sons  of  the  men  who  con- 
quered on  that  field  could  find  no  odds  too  crushing,  no  prize 
too  dazzling,  in  the  years  to  come.  It  was  now  that  the 
Athenian  character  first  showed  itself  as  Thucydides  (i.  70) 
described  it  a  century  later:  "The  Athenians  are  the  only 
people  who  succeed  to  the  full  extent  of  their  hope,  because 
they  throw  themselves  without  reserve  into  whatever  they 
resolve  to  do." 

V.  ATHENS  — FROM  MARATHON  TO  THERMOPYLAE. 

163.  An  Interval  of  Preparation:  Themistocles.  —  Marathon, 
together  with  an  Egyptian  revolt  against  Persia,  gained  the 
Greeks  ten  years  more  of  respite ;  but  except  in  Athens  little 
use  was  made  of  the  interval.  In  that  city  the  guiding  spirit 
had  come  to  be  Themistocles,  one  of  the  most  energetic  and 
statesman-like  leaders  in  all  history.  Under  his  guidance  the 
Athenian  democracy  ygrew  in  unity  and  power.  Two  especially 
important  measures  are  noted  in  the  following  sections. 

164.  Athens  crushed  Internal  Faction  by  weakening  and  ter- 
rorizing the  oligarchs.  This  involved  the  ruin  of  Miltiades, 
the  hero  of  Marathon.  He  was  an  Athenian  noble  who  had 
formerly  made  himself  tyrant  of  Chersonese.  Not  long  before 
the  Persian  invasion  he  had  incurred  the  hatred  of  the  Great 
King  and  had  fled  to  Athens,  where  he  became  at  once  a 
prominent  supporter  of  the  oligarchic  party.  The  democrats 
tried  to  prosecute  him  for  his  previous  "tyranny,"  but  the 
attempt  failed,  and  his  genius  was  available  at  Marathon. 
Soon  after,  he  failed  in  a  military  expedition  against  Paros, 
and  this  time  the  democrats  secured  his  condemnation.^  He 
died  shortly  after  in  prison ;  and  the  blow  was  followed  by 

1  Special  reports :  a  fuller  story  of  Miltiades ;  the  question  of  Athenian 
ingratitude  (Abbot,  I.  93-97;  Grote,  IV.  492-512;  Cox,  Greeks  and  Persians, 
135-139;  Holm,  H.  23-24;  Curtius,  H.  255-258). 


§  166]  PERSIAN  AND    GREEK   PREPARATIONS.  143 

the  ostracism  of  some  oligarchic  leader  each  season  for  several 
years,  until  that  party  was  utterly  broken  and  Athens  was 
freed  from  danger  of  internal  dissension. 

165.  Athens  a  Naval  Power.  —  The  victorious  democrats  di- 
vided into  new  parties  on  questions  of  policy.  AristeideSj 
''the  Just,"  led  the  more  moderate  wing,  content  with  the 
Cleisthenian  constitution  and  inclined  to  follow  old  customs. 
Themistodes  headed  the  more  radical  faction,  and  was  bent 
upon  a  great  departure  from  all  past  custom.  The  two  ap- 
pealed to  the  ostracism,  and  fortunately  Aristeides  was  ban- 
ished. 

Some  new  and  rich  veins  of  silver  had  just  been  discovered 
in  the  mines  of  Attica,  and  it  had  been  proposed  to  divide  the 
large  revenue  among  the  citizens.  Themistocles  now  persuaded 
his  countrymen  to  reject  this  tempting  plan;  and  instead  to 
byild  a  great  fleet.  He  saw  that  the  real  struggle  with  Persia 
was  yet  to  come,  and  that  for  a  country  like  Hellas,  the  final 
issue  must  be  decided  by  the  command  of  the  sea,  —  where, 
too,  the  Greeks  could  not  be  so  infinitely  outnumbered.  The 
policy,  wise  though  it  was,  broke  with  all  tradition.  No  Euro- 
pean Greeks  up  to  this  time  had  used  ships  in  war  in  any 
considerable  measure ;  and  Attica  was  utterly  insignificant 
upon  the  sea.  But,  thanks  to  Themistocles,  in  the  next  three 
years  Athens  became  the  greatest  naval  power  in  Hellas ;  and 
the  decisive  victory  of  Salamis  (§  171)  was  to  be  the  result. 

VI.    THE   MAIN  ATTACK,   480-479  B.C. 

166.  Persian  Preparation.  —  Meantime,  happily  for  the  world, 
Darius  had  died,  and  the  invasion  of  Greece  fell  to  his  vain 
and  feeble  son,  Xerxes.  Marathon  had  proved  that  no  Per- 
sian fleet  could  transport  troops  suflicient  for  the  enterprise, 
so  the  route  through  Thessaly  was  tried  again.  Another  such 
accident  as  had  wrecked  the  first  expedition  was  guarded 
against  by  the  construction  of  a  ship-canal  through  the  isth- 
,mus  of  Mount  Athos  —  a  great  engineering  work  that  took 


144  THE  PERSIAN  ATTACK.  L§  167 

three  years.  Meantime,  supplies  were  collected  at  stations 
along  the  way ;  the  Hellespont  was  bridged ;  and  finally,  in 
the  spring  of  480  b.c,  Xerxes  in  person  led  a  mighty  host  of 
many  nations  into  Europe.  Ancient  reports  put  the  Asiatics 
at  from  one  and  a  half  to  two  millions  of  soldiers,  with  follow- 
ers and  attendants  to  raise  the  total  to  five  millions.  Modern 
critics  think  Xerxes  may  have  had  some  half-million  effective 
troops,  with  numerous  followers.  A  fleet  of  twelve  hundred 
ships  accompanied  the  army. 

167.  The  Greek  Preparation.  —  The  danger  forced  the  Greeks 
into  something  like  common  action :  into  a  greater  unity,  in- 
deed, than  they  had  ever  known  so  far,  unless  in  the  legendary 
war  against  Asiatic  Troy.  Sparta  and  Athens  joined  in  calling 
an  Hellenic  congress  at  the  Isthmus,  in  the  spring  of  480  b.c. 
The  deputies  that  appeared  bound  their  cities  by  oath  to 
mutual  aid,  and  pledged  their  common  efforts  to  punish  any 
states  that  should  "  Medize,"  or  join  Persia.  Plans  of  campaign 
were  discussed,  and  Sparta  was  recognized  formally  as  leader. 
Ancient  feuds  were  pacified,  and  messengers  were  sent  to  im- 
plore aid  from  outlying  portions  of  Hellas,  though  with  little 
result.  Crete  excused  herself  on  a  superstitious  scruple;  Cor- 
ey ra  promised  a  fleet,  but  took  care  it  should  not  arrive ;  and 
Gelon  of  Syracuse  had  his  hands  full  at  home  with  the  Carthar 
ginian  invasion.  Indeed,  the  double  attack  by  Asia  and  Africa 
upon  the  two  sections  of  the  Greek  race  was  probably  concerted 
to  prevent  any  joining  of  Hellenic  forces. 

The  outlook  was  full  of  gloom.  Argos,  out  of  hatred  of 
Sparta,  and  Thebes,  from  jealousy  of  Athens,  refused  to  attend 
the  congress,  and  were  ready  to  join  Xerxes.  Even  the  Delphic 
oracle  predicted  ruin,  advised  submission,  and  warned  the 
Athenians  to  flee  to  the  ends  of  the  earth. 

168.  The  Lines  of  Defense :  Plan  of  Campaign.  —  Against  a  land 
attack  the  Greeks  had  three  lines  of  defense.  The  first  was 
at  the  Vale  of  Tempe  near  Mount  Olympus,  where  only  a 
narrow  pass  opened  into  Thessaly.     The  second  was  at  Ther- 


§  170]  THERMOPYLAE.  145 

mopylae,  where  the  mountains  shut  off  northern  from  central 
Greece,  except  for  a  still  narrower  road.  The  third  was  behind 
the  Isthmus  of  Corinth. 

At  the  congress,  the  Peloponnesians  had  wished  selfishly  to 
abandon  the  first  two  lines.  They  urged  that  all  patriotic 
Greeks  should  retire  at  once  within  the  Peloponnesus,  the  final 
citadel  of  Greece,  and  fortify  the  Isthmus  by  an  impregnable 
jKrall.  This  plan  was  as  foolish  as  it  was  selfish.  Greek  troops 
might  have  held  the  Isthmus  against  a  land  army;  but  the 
Peloponnesus  was  readily  open  to  attack  by  sea,  and  the  Per- 
sian fleet  would  have  found  it  easier  here  than  at  either  of  the 
other  lines  of  defense  to  land  troops  in  the  Greek  rear  with- 
out losing  touch  with  its  own  army.  Such  a  surrender  of  two 
thirds  of  Greece,  too,  would  have  meant  a  tremendous  reen- 
forcement  of  the  enemy  by  excellent  Greek  soldiery. 

169.  The  Loss  of  Thessaly.  —  Sparta  had  no  gift  for  going  to 
meet  an  enemy,  but  must  await  its  attack  on  its  own  terms. 
From  fifty  thousand  to  one  hundred  thousand  men  should  have 
held  the  Vale  of  Tempe.  The  feeble  and  insufficient  garrison 
sent  there  retreated  wisely  before  the  Persians  appeared. 
Xerxes  entered  Greece  without  a  blow,  and  the  Thessalian 
cities,  so  deserted  by  their  allies,  joined  the  invaders  with  their 
powerful  cavalry. 

170.  Thermopylae.  —  This  made  it  evident,  even  to  Spartan 
statesmen,  that  to  abandon  central  Greece  would  strengthen 
Xerxes  further,  and  it  was  decided  in  a  half-hearted  way  to 
make  a  stand  at  Thermopylae.  The  pass  was  only  some 
twenty  feet  wide  between  the  cliff  and  the  sea,  and  the  only 
other  path  was  one  over  the  mountain,  equally  easy  to  defend. 
The  long  island  of  Euboea  approached  the  mainland  just  op- 
posite the  pass,  so  that  the  Greek  fleet  in  the  narrow  water 
passage  could  guard  the  land  army  against  having  troops 
landed  in  the  rear.  The  Athenians  furnished  and  manned  one 
hundred  and  twenty-seven  ships  of  the  fleet  (out  of  a  total 
of  two  hundred  and  seventy).     The   land  defense  had  been 


146  THE   PERSIAN  ATTACK.  [§  171 

left  to  the  Peloponnesian  league  and  the  other  non-maritime 
states.  A  shamefully  small  force  v/as  sent  for  this  impor- 
tant duty.  The  Spartan  king  Leonidas  lay  in  the  pass  with 
three  hundred  Spartans  and  three  thousand  other  Pelopon- 
nesian hoplites,  besides  light-armed  Helots  and  a  few  thou- 
sand allies  from  central  Greece.  The  main  force  of  Spartans 
was  again  left  at  home,  on  the  ground  of  a  religious  festival. 
Battle  was  joined  on  land  and  sea,  and  raged  for  three  days. 
Four  hundred  Persian  ships  were  wrecked  in  a  storm,  and  the 
rest  were  checked  by  the  Greek  fleet  in  a  sternly  contested 
conflict  at  Artemisium.  On  land,  Xerxes  flung  column  after 
column  of  chosen  troops  into  the  pass,  to  be  beaten  back  each 
time  in  rout.  But  on  the  second  night  Ejyhialtes,  "  The  Judas 
of  Greece,"  guided  a  force  of  Persians  over  the  mountain 
path,  which,  with  criminal  carelessness,  had  been  left  insuffi- 
ciently guarded.  Leonidas'  position  could  no  longer  be  held. 
The  allies  withdrew,  but  the  three  Hundred  Spartans  remained 
with  their  king  to  die  in  the  pass  their  country  had  sent  them 
to  protect.  Sparta  had  shown  no  capacity  to  command  in  this 
great  crisis,  but  her  citizens  could  set  Greece  an  example  of 
calm  heroism  that  has  stirred  the  world  ever  since.  In  later 
times  the  burial  place  of  the  three  hundred  was  marked  by  this 
inscription :  "  Stranger,  tell  at  Sparta  that  we  lie  here  in  obedi- 
ence to  her  laws."  ^ 

171.  The  Strategy  of  Themistocles.  —  At  the  moment,  Ther- 
mopylae was  disastrous.  Xerxes  advanced  on  Athens  and  was 
joined  by  nearly  all  the  states  of  central  Greece,  while  the 
Theban  oligarchs  welcomed  him  with  genuine  joy.  The  Pelo- 
ponnesian s  would  risk  no  further  battle  outside  their  own  pen- 
insula, and  the  Athenians  took  refuge  on  their  fleet.  Delphi 
had  finally  prophesied  safety  for  them  within  "  wooden  walls." 
Some  thought  the  palisade  of  the  Acropolis  was  meant,  but 

1  Special  reports :  the  story  of  the  one  Spartan  who  escaped ;  the  Thebans 
and  Thespians  who  remained  with  the  Spartaas  —  their  motives,  and  the 
strange  neglect  shown  them  in  Greek  history. 


§171] 


THE   STRATEGY  OF   THEMISTOCLES. 


147 


Themistocles,  who  perhaps  had  secured  the  prophecy,  per- 
suaded his  fellow-citizens  to  put  their  trust  in  the  wooden 
walls  of  their  ships.  The  Spartan  admiral,  by  persistent  en- 
treaty, had  been  brought  to  delay  the  retreat  of  the  fleet  long 
enough  to  help  remove  the  women  and  children  from  Athens. 
But  Themistocles  was  determined  also  that  the  decisive  battle 


G.  The  Greek  fleet  at  Salamis.    PPP.  The  Persian  fleet. 
X.   The  Throne  of  Xerxes. 

should  be  fought  at  this  spot.  The  narrow  strait  between  the 
shore  and  Salamis  helped  to  compensate  for  the  smaller  num- 
bers of  the  Greeks ;  and  it  was  evident  to  his  insight  that  if 
the  fleet  withdrew  to  Corinth,  as  the  Corinthians  insisted  it 
should  do,  all  chance  of  united  action  would  be  lost :  some  con- 
tingents would  sail  home  to  defend  their  own  cities  against 


148 


THE   PERSIAN  ATTACK. 


[§171 


Persian  demonstrations;  and  others,  like  those  of  Megara  and 
Aegina,  their  cities  deserted,  might  join  the  Persians.  The 
Athenians  furnished  two  hundred  of  the  three  hundred  and 
seventy-eight  ships  now  in  the  fleet;  and  though  with  wise 
and  generous  patriotism  they  had  yielded  the  chief  command  to 
Sparta,  with  her  ten  ships,  still  of  course  Themistocles  carried 
weight  in  the  council  of  captains.  It  was  he  who,  by  persua- 
sion, entreaties,  and  bribes  had  kept  the  despairing  allies  from 
abandoning  the  land  forces  at  Thermopylae.     A  similar  but 


Bay  of  Sal  amis. 


greater  task  now  fell  to  him.  Debate  waxed  fierce  in  the  night 
council.  Arguments  were  exhausted,  and  Themistocles  had 
recourse  to  threats  and  stratagems.  The  Corinthian  admiral 
sneered  that  they  need  not  regard  a  man  who  no  longer  repre- 
sented a  Greek  city;  the  Athenian  retorted  that  he  represented 
two  hundred  ships  and  could  make  a  city  where  he  chose ;  and 
by  a  threat  to  sail  away  to  found  a  new  Athens  in  Italy  he 
forced  the  allies  to  remain.  Even  then  the  decision  would 
have  been   reconsidered  had  not  the  wily  Athenian  induced 


§  172]  THE   BATTLE   OF   SAL  AMIS.  149 

Xerxes,  by  a  secret  message,  pretending  treachery,  to  block  up 
the  strait.  The  news  of  this  Persian  move  was  brought  to  the 
Greek  chiefs  by  Aristeides,  whose  ostracism  had  been  revoked 
and  who  now  slipped  through  the  hostile  fleet  in  his  single 
ship  to  join  his  countrymen. 

172.  The  Battle  of  Salamis.  —  The  Persian  fleet  more  than 
doubled  the  Greek,  and  was  itself  largely  made  up  of  Asiatic 
frreeks,  while  the  Phoenicians  who  composed  the  remainder 
were  redoubtable  sailors.  The  conflict  lasted  the  next  day 
from  dawn  to  night,  but  the  Greek  victory  was  overwhelming. 

* '  A  king  sat  on  the  rocky  brow  i 
Which  looks  o'er  sea-born  Salamis  ; 
And  ships  by  thousands  lay  below, 
And  men  in  nations,  —  all  were  his. 
He  counted  them  at  break  of  day, 
And  when  the  sun  set,  where  were  they  ?  " 

Aeschylus,  who  fought  on  board  an  Athenian  ship,  gives  a 
noble  picture  of  the  battle  in  his  drama.  The  Persians.  The 
speaker  is  a  Persian  recounting  the  event  to  the  Persian  queen 

mother :  — 

"  Not  in  flight 
The  Hellenes  then  their  solemn  paeans  sang, 
But  with  brave  spirits  hastening  on  to  battle. 
With  martial  sound  the  trumpet  fired  those  ranks : 
And  straight  with  sweep  of  oars  that  flew  thro'  foam, 
They  smote  the  loud  waves  at  the  boatswain's  call ; 
And  swiftly  all  were  manifest  to  sight. 
Then  first  their  right  wing  moved  in  order  meet ; 
Next  the  whole  line  its  forward  course  began  ; 
And  all  at  once  we  heard  a  mighty  shout  — 
'  0  sons  of  Hellenes^  foncard,  free  your  country  ; 
Free,  too,  your  wives,  your  children,  and  the  shrines 
Built  to  your  fathers^  Gods,  and  holy  tombs 
Your  ancestors  now  rest  in.     The  fight 
Is  for  our  all. '  .  .  . 


1  A  golden  throne  had  been  set  up  for  Xerxes,  that  he  might  better  view 
the  battle. 


150  THE   PERSIAN  ATTACK.  [§  173 

.  .  .  And  the  hulls  of  ships 
Floated  capsized,  nor  could  the  sea  be  seen, 
Filled  as  it  was  with  wrecks  and  carcasses  ; 
And  all  the  shores  and  rocks  were  full  of  corpses, 
And  every  ship  was  wildly  rowed  in  flight, 
All  that  composed  the  Persian  armament. 
And  they,  as  men  spear  tunnies,  or  a  haul 
Of  other  fishes,  with  the  shafts  of  oars, 
Or  spars  of  wrecks,  went  smiting,  cleaving  down  ; 
And  bitter  groans  and  wailings  overspread 
The  wide  sea  waves,  till  eye  of  swarthy  night 
Bade  it  all  cease  :  — and  for  the  mass  of  ills, 
Not,  tho'  my  tale  should  run  for  ten  full  days, 
Could  I  in  full  recount  them.     Be  assured 
That  never  yet  so  great  a  multitude 
Died  in  a  single  day  as  died  in  this." 

173.  Illustrative  Incidents.  —  Two  incidents  in  the  celebration  of 
the  victory  throw  light  upon  Greek  character, 

a.  The  commanders  of  the  various  city  contingents  in  the  Greek  fleet 
voted  a  prize  of  merit  to  the  city  that  deserved  best  in  the  action.  The 
Athenians  had  furnished  more  than  half  the  whole  fleet ;  they  were  the 
first  to  engage,  and  they  had  specially  distinguished  themselves  ;  they  had 
seen  their  city  laid  in  ashes,  too,  and  only  their  steady  patriotism  had 
made  a  victory  possible.  Peloponnesian  jealousy  passed  them  by,  how- 
ever, for  their  rivals  of  Aegina,  who  had  joined  the  Spartan  league. 

b.  Another  vote  was  taken  to  award  prizes  to  the  two  most  merito- 
rious commanders.  Each  captain  voted  for  himself  for  the  first  place, 
and  all  voted  for  Themistocles  for  the  second.  ^ 

174.  The  Temptation  of  Athens.  — On  the  day  of  Salamis  the 
Sicilian  Greeks  won  their  decisive  victory  over  the  Cartha- 
ginians at  Himera.  That  battle  closed  the  struggle  for  a  while 
in  the  west.  In  Greece  the  Persian  chances  were  still  good. 
Xerxes  returned  at  once  to  Asia  with  his  shattered  fleet,  but 
his  general  Mardonius  remained  in  Thessaly  with  three  hun- 
dred thousand  chosen  troops  to  renew  the  struggle  in  the 
spring. 

The  Athenians   began  courageously  to   rebuild  their  city, 

1  Herodotus,  viii.  93;  Plutarch's  Themistocles. 


§  175]  PLATAEA.  151 

which  Xerxes  had  laid  in  ashes.  In  the  early  spring,  Mardo- 
nius  sent  them  an  offer  of  favorable  alliance,  with  the  restora- 
tion of  their  city  at  Persian  expense  —  a  compliment  which 
showed  that  he  at  least  knew  where  lay  the  soul  of  the  Greek 
resistance.  The  terrified  Spartans  sent  in  haste  to  beg  the 
Athenians,  with  many  promises,  not  to  desert  the  cause  of 
Hellas.  There  was  no  need  of  such  anxiety.  The  Athenians 
sent  back  the  Persian  messenger:  "Tell  Mardonius  that  so 
long  as  the  sun  holds  on  his  way  in  heaven  the  Athenians  will 
come  to  no  terms  with  Xerxes."  They  courteously  declined 
the  Spartan  offer  of  aid  in  rebuilding  their  city,  but  did  urge 
them  to  take  the  field  early  enough  so  that  Athens  need  not  be 
again  abandoned.  Mardonius  approached  rapidly.  The  Spar- 
tans found  another  sacred  festival  before  which  it  would  not 
do  to  leave  their  homes,  and  the  Athenians  in  bitter  disap- 
pointment a  second  time  took  refuge  at  Salamis.  With  their 
city  in  his  hands,  Mardonius  offered  them  again  the  same 
favorable  terms  of  honorable  alliance.  Only  one  of  the  Athe- 
nian Council  favored  even  submitting  the  matter  to  the  peo- 
ple, and  he  was  instantly  stoned  by  the '  enraged  populace 
while  the  women  inflicted  a  like  cruel  fate  upon  his  wife  and 
children.  We  may  regret  that  the  nobility  of  the  Athenian 
policy  should  have  been  sullied  by  such  violence,  but  nothing 
can  seriously  obscure  their  heroic  self-sacrifice,  unparalleled  in 
history.  Mardonius  burned  Athens  a  second  time,  laid  waste 
the  farms  over  Attica,  cut  down  the  olive  groves,  and  then 
retired  to  the  level  plains  of  Boeotia. 

175.  Plataea,  479  B.C.  —  Athenian  envoys  had  been  at  Sparta 
for  weeks  entreating  instant  action,  but  had  been  put  off  with 
meaningless  delays.  The  fact  was,  Sparta  still  clung  to  the 
stupid  plan  of  defending  only  the  Isthmus.  Some  of  her 
keener  allies,  however,  at  last  made  the  ephors  see  the  useless- 
ness  of  the  wall  at  Corinth  if  the  Athenians  should  be  forced 
to  join  Persia  with  their  fleet ;  then  Sparta  finally  acted  with 
energy,  and  gave  a  striking  proof  of  her  resources.     One  morn- 


152  THE  PERSIAN  ATTACK.  [§  176 

ing  the  Athenian  envoys,  who  were  about  to  announce  their 
wrathful  departure,  were  told,  to  their  amazement,  that  fifty 
thousand  Peloponnesian  troops  had  been  put  in  motion  during 
the  night.  The  Athenian  forces  and  other  reenforcements 
raised  the  total  to  about  one  hundred  thousand.  The  final 
contest  with  Mardonius  was  fought  near  the  little  town  of 
Plataea.  Spartan  generalship  blundered  sadly,  and  most  of 
the  allies  were  not  brought  into  the  fight;  but  the  stubborn 
Spartan  valor  and  the  Athenian  skill  and  dash  won  a  victory  ^ 
which  became  a  massacre.  It  is  said  that  of  the  two  hundred 
and  sixty  thousand  Persians  engaged,  only  three  thousand 
escaped.  The  Greeks  lost  in  the  battle  itself  only  one  hundred 
and  fifty -four  men. 

176.  The  Meaning  of  the  Greek  Victory.  —  Plataea  closed  the 
first  period  of  the  Persian  War.  The  Persians  and  Carthagin- 
ians were  not  barbarians  in  our  sense  of  the  word.  In  some 
respects  they  stood  for  at  least  as  high  a  civilization  as  the 
Greeks  then  did.  They  possessed  refinement  and  high  moral 
ideals.  Ancient  Greece  as  a  Persian  province  would  have  had 
an  infinitely  happier  and  more  prosperous  fate  than  modern 
Greece  has  had  for  many  centuries  as  a  Turkish  province. 
But,  none  the  less,  a  Persian  victory  would  have  meant  the 
extinction  of  the  world's  best  hope.  The  victory  of  the  Greeks 
decided  that  the  despotism  of  the  East  should  not  crush  the 
individuality  of  the  West  in  this  first  home  until  it  had  been 
transplanted  into  other  European  lands. 

To  the  Greeks  themselves  their  victory  opened  a  new  epoch. 
It  was  not  only  that  they  were  cast  back  upon  themselves  for 
a  more  European  development  (§  152) ;  they  were  victors  over 
the  greatest  of  world  empires.  It  was  a  victory  of  intellect 
and  spirit  over  matter.  Unlimited  confidence  gave  them  still 
greater  power.  New  energies  stirred  in  their  veins  and  found 
expression  in  manifold  forms.     The  matchless  bloom  of  Greek 

1  Special  report :  Herodotus,  ix.  12-89,  and  modem  critic%^ 


§  176]  PLATAEA.  153 

art  and  thought,  in  the  next  two  generations,  had  its  roots  in 
the  soil  of  Marathon  and  Plataea. 


References.  —  Herodotus,  vi.-ix.  ;  Plutarch,  Themistocles  and  Aristei- 
des  ;  Cox,  Greeks  and  Persians  ;  Holm  ;  Grote  ;  Abbott ;  Curtius.  For 
the  Carthaginian  Attack  :  Freeman,  iitory  of  Sicily^  chs.  v. ,  vi. 

Exercise.  —  1.  Summarize  the  causes  of  the  Persian  wars.  2.  De- 
vise and  memorize  a  series  of  catch-words  and  phrases  for  rapid  statement, 
that  shall  bring  out  the  outline  of  the  story  quickly.     Thus  :  — 

Persian  demands  for  "earth  and  water":  compliance  of  the  island- 
states  ;  reception  at  Sparta  and  Athens.  First  expedition^  through  Thrace : 
Mount  Athos.  Second  expedition,  across  the  Aegean,  two  years  later : 
capture  of  Eretria  ;  landing  at  Marathon;  excuses  of  Sparta.;  arrival  of 
Plataeans  ;  Miltiades  and  battle  of  Marathon,  490. 

Let  the  student  continue  the  series  through  the  war. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  AGE   OF  PERICLES  —  PROM  THE  PERSIAN 
THROUGH   THE  PELOPONNESIAN   "WAR. 

I.   GROWTH  OF  THE  ATHENIAN  EMPIRE. 

177.  Preparation  at  Athens :  the  Building  of  the  Walls  and  the 
Peiraeus..  —  Immediately  after  Plataea,  the  Athenians  began 
once  more  to  rebuild  their  temples  and  homes ;  but  Themis- 
tocles  persuaded  them  to  leave  even  these  in  ashes  until  they 
should  have  surrounded  the  city  with  walls.  Corinth,  jealously 
eager  to  keep  Athens  helpless,  urged  Sparta  to  interfere ;  and, 
to  her  shame,  that  city  did  send  a  protest.  Such  walls,  she 
said,  might  prove  an  advantage  to  the  Persians  if  they  should 
again  occupy  Athens.  The  interference  was  the  more  cruelly 
unjust  since  the  helpless  condition  of  the  Athenians  was  due 
to  their  heroic  sacrifice  for  Hellas.  A  Peloponnesian  army, 
however,  could  hardly  have  been  resisted  by  ravaged  Attica, 
and  Themistocles  had  recourse  to  wiles.  As  Thucydides  tells 
the  story :  — 

"The  Athenians,  by  the  advice  of  Themistocles,  replied  that  they 
would  send  an  embassy  to  discuss  the  matter,  and  so  got  rid  of  the 
Spartan  envoys.  He  then  proposed  that  he  should  himself  start  at  once 
for  Sparta,  and  that  they  should  give  him  colleagues  who  were  not  to  go 
immediately,  but  were  to  wait  until  the  wall  had  reached  the  lowest  height 
which  could  possibly  be  defended.  ...  On  his  arrival,  he  did  not  at 
once  present  himself  officially  to  the  magistrates,  but  delayed  and  made 
excuses,  and  when  any  of  them  asked  him  why  he  did  not  appear  before 
the  assembly,  he  said  that  he  was  waiting  for  his  colleagues,  who  had 
been  detained  by  some  engagement.  .  .  .  The  friendship  of  the  magis- 
trates for  Themistocles  induced  them  to  believe  him,  but  when  everybody 
who  came  from  Athens  declared  positively  that  the  wall  was  building, 

154 


§  177]  THE   BUILDING  OF  THE   WALLS.  155 

and  had  already  reached  a  considerable  height,  they  knew  not  what  to 
think.  He,  aware  of  their  suspicions,  desired  them  not  to  be  misled  by 
reports,  but  to  send  to  Athens  men  whom  they  could  trust  out  of  their 
own  number,  who  would  see  for  themselves  and  bring  back  word.  They 
agreed ;  and  he,  at  the  same  time,  privately  instructed  the  Athenians  to 
detain  the  envoys  as  quietly  as  they  could,  and  not  let  them  go  till  he  and 
his  colleagues  had  got  safely  home.  For  by  this  time,  those  who  were 
joined  with  him  in  the  embassy  had  arrived,  bringing  the  news  that  the 
wall  was  of  sufficient  height,  and  he  was  afraid  that  the  Lacedaemonians, 
when  they  heard  the  truth,  might  not  allow  them  to  return.  So  the 
Athenians  detained  the  envoys,  and  Themistocles,  coming  before  the 
Lacedaemonians,  at  length  declared,  in  so  many  words,  that  Athens  was 
now  provided  with  walls  and  would  protect  her  citizens ;  henceforward, 
if  the  Lacedaemonians  wished  at  any  time  to  negotiate,  they  must  deal 
with  the  Athenians  as  with  men  who  knew  quite  well  what  was  best  for 
their  own  and  the  common  good." 

Neglecting  all  private  concerns,  the  Athenians  had  toiled 
with  feverish  haste  —  men,  women,  children,  and  slaves.  To 
later  generations  the  story  was  told  in  part  by  the  irregular 
nature  of  the  walls.  No  material  was  held  too  precious.  In- 
scribed tablets  and  fragments  of  sacred  temples,  and  even 
monuments  from  the  burial  grounds,  had  been  seized  for  the 
construction. 

But  Themistocles  was  not  yet  content.  Athens  lay  several 
miles  from  the  shore.  In  his  archonship,  some  years  before, 
with  a  view  to  future  naval  greatness,  he  had  given  the  city 
the  improved  harbor  of  the  Peiraeus,  instead  of  an  open  road- 
stead formerly  used;  and  this  port  was  now  fortified,  more 
deliberately  than  the  main  city,  with  a  massive  wall  of  solid 
masonry  clamped  with  iron,  sixteen  feet  broad  and  thirty  feet 
high,  so  that  old  men  and  boys  might  easily  defend  it  against 
any  enemy.  Thus  the  Athenians  were  put  in  possession  of  two 
walled  cities,  each  some  seven  miles  in  circuit,  and  only  five 
miles  apart.  The  metics  who  had  thronged  the  port  had  fled 
at  the  Persian  invasion,  but  this  new  security,  together  with 
special  inducements  now  held  out  to  strangers,  brought  back 
the  merchant-class  in  crowds  to  contribute  to  the  power  and 
wealth  of  Athens.     It  was  at  this  time,  too,  that  Themis- 


156 


GROWTH  OF  THE   ATHENIAN   EMPIRE. 


[§178 


tocles  carried  a  resolution  to  add  each  year  twenty  ships  to 
the  fleet.^ 

178.  A  Fleeting  Vision  of  a  United  Hellas.  —  Before  these 
events  at  Athens,  while  the  Greek  army  was  still  encamped  at 
Plataea  after  the  victory,  it  had  been  agreed  to  hold  there  an 
annual  congress  of  all  Greek  cities,  and  constantly  to  maintain 
eleven  thousand  troops  and  a  hundred  ships  for  war  against 


aaa  -Walls  of  Themistocles. 
666 -Old  City  Limits. 
A  "Acropolis. 
B  -Areopagus. 
C  -Pnyjt, 
D  —Museum. 
E  —Agora. 


Persia.  The  proposal  for  this  Pan-Hellenic  confederation 
came  from  Athens.  Of  course  it  looked  to  Spartan  leader- 
ship. It  was  a  wise  and  generous  attempt  to  render  permanent 
the  makeshift  union  that  the  Persian  danger  had  forced  upon 
the  allies.  But  the  episode  of  the  walls  proved  the  hollow 
nature  of  the  union,  and  the  plan  never  really  went  into  effect. 
Instead,  Greece  fell  into  two  rival  leagues,  and  Athens  became 
head  of  the  more  brilliant  one. 


1  The  "  Long  Walls  "  shown  on  the  map  upon  this  page  and  on  the  earlier 
map  of  Attica  (p.  147)  were  not  huilt  until  somewhat  later;    Cf .  §  186. 


§  180]  ATHENS  ASSUMES  LEADERSHIP.  157 

179.  The  New  Prominence  of  Athens.  — The  repulse  of  Persia 
had  counted  more  for  the  glory  of  Athens  than  of  Sparta. 
Athens  had  made  greater  sacrifices  than  any  other  state.  She 
had  shown  herself  free  from  petty  vanity,  and  had  acted 
with  a  broad,  Hellenic  patriotism.  Herodotus,  in  his  history 
of  the  war,  feels  constrained  to  insist  that  the  victory  over 
Persia  was  due  mainly  to  the  skill,  wisdom,  and  energy  of 
the  Athenians.  They  furnished  the  best  ideas  and  ablest 
leaders ;  and  even  in  the  field,  Athenian  enterprise  and  vigor 
had  accomplished  at  least  as  much  as  Spartan  discipline  and 
valor. 

Sparta  had  been  indispensable  as  a  rallying  point:  but  she  had 
shown  miserable  judgment;  her  leaders,  too  often,  had  proved 
incapable  or  corrupt ;  ^  and  now  that  war  was  to  be  carried  on 
at  a  distance,  her  lack  of  enterprise  became  even  more  con- 
spicuous. Indeed,  events  in  Asia  Minor  were  already  forcing 
Athens  into  the  leadership  to  which  she  was  entitled.  The 
European  Greeks  had  been  unwilling  to  follow  any  but  Spartan 
generals  on  sea  or  land ;  but  on  the  Ionian  coast  Athens  was 
the  more  popular  city,  and  her  superior  activity  and  fitness  at 
once  won  recognition. 

180.  Athens  assumes  Leadership  of  the  Ionian  Greeks  (479  B.C.). 

—  While  the  Persians  on  Greek  soil  still  threatened  conquest, 
the  Greeks  had  taken  the  offensive.  In  the  early  spring  of 
479  B.C.,  a  fleet  had  crossed  the  Aegean  to  assist  Samos  in  a 
revolt.  A  Spartan  king  commanded  the  expedition,  of  course, 
but  three  fifths  of  the  whole  fleet  were  Athenian  ships.  On 
the  very  day  of  Plataea,^  a  double  victory  was  won  at  Mycale  on 
the  coast  of  Asia  Minor :  the  Greeks  defeated  a  great  Persian 
army,  and  then,  storming  the  fortified  camp,  seized  and 
burned  the  three  hundred  Persian  ships.     No  Persian  fleet 


1  Special  reports:    Pausanias  at  Byzantium,  and  King  Leotychides  in 
Thessaly. 

2  According  to  the  ancient  authorities.      Modem  authorities  doubt  this 
coincidence  of  dates. 


I5gi  GROWTH   OF  THE   ATHENIAN   EMPIRE.  [§181 

was  to  show  itself  again  in  the  Aegean  for  nearly  a  hundred 
years,  —  until  after  the  fall  of  Athens.  In  this  decisive  battle, 
the  Athenians  were  fortunate  enough  to  have  practically  com- 
pleted the  work  before  the  Spartans  and  their  wing  of  the 
army  were  able  to  reach  the  fiplH.  ..^ 

A  general  rising  of  the  Ionian  cities  followed,  but  the  Spar- 
tans shrank  from  the  responsibility  of  admitting  them  into  the 
Hellenic  league  and  of  defending  so  distant  allies  against 
Persia.  They  proposed  instead  to  transport  the  lonians  to 
European  Greece  and  to  give  them  the  cities  of  the  Medizing 
Greeks  there.  The  lonians  of  course  would  not  leave  their 
homes,  and  the  Athenians  denied  the  right  of  Sparta  so  to 
decide  the  fate  of  "  Athenian  colonies."  The  Spartans  seized 
the  excuse  to  sail  home,  leaving  the  Athenians  to  manage  as 
best  they  could  by  themselves.  The  latter  gallantly  undertook 
the  task,  and  began  the  reduction  of  the  scattered  Persian 
garrisons  in  the  Aegean. 

The  next  year,  thinking  better  of  it,  Sparta  sent  Pausanias, 
the  general  of  Plataea,  to  take  command ;  but  he  entered  into 
treasonable  correspondence  with  Xerxes,  and  by  his  unendur- 
able insolence  so  offended  the  allies  that,  though  his  treason 
was  only  suspected  as  yet,  they  formally  invited  the  Athenians 
to  take  the  leadership.  Another  Spartan  general  arrived  to 
replace  Pausanias ;  but  the  allies  chose  to  remain  under  Athe- 
nian command,  and  Sparta,  with  all  the  Peloponnesian  league, 
withdrew  finally  from  the  war.  Athens  was  thenceforth  the 
recognized  head  in  the  struggle  to  preserve  the  freedom  of  the 
Asiatic  Greeks.  The  league  of  Plataea  was  still  nominally  in 
existence,  but  the  war  was  to  be  waged  henceforth  on  Asiatic 
shores,  and  by  Greeks  who  (excepting  the  Athenians)  had  had 
no  share  in  Plataea. 

181.  The  Confederacy  of  Delos,  477.  —  The  first  step  was  to 
organize  a  more  definite  confederacy.  This  work  fell  to  Aris- 
teides ;  and  Athens  was  as  fortunate  in  her  representative  as 
Sparta  had  been  unfortunate  in  hers.     The  courtesy  and  tact 


§  182]  THE  DELIAN  LEAGUE.  159 

of  the  Athenian  won  universal  favor,  and  his  known  integrity 
inspired  a  rare  confidence  in  the  settlement  of  the  money- 
contributions.  The  arrangements  he  proposed  were  ratified 
by  all  the  allies,  and  created  the  Confederacy  of  Delos.  A 
congress  of  the  states  to  direct  the  affairs  of  the  league  was 
to  be  held  annually  at  Delos  —  the  seat  of  an  ancient  Ionic 
amphictyony.  Each  state  had  one  vote.  Each  paid  a  yearly 
-^contribution  to  the  treasury,  and  the  larger  cities  furnished 
also  ships  and  men.  Athens  was  the  president  city.  Her 
generals  commanded  the  allied  fleet,  and  her  delegates  pre- 
sided at  the  congresses.  In  return,  Athens  seems  to  have 
borne  far  more  than*^er  share  of  the  burdens.^  The  purpose 
of  the  league  was  to  complete  the  process  of  freeing  the 
Aegean  and  to  prevent  the  return  of  the  Persians.  Any  city 
in  the  vicinity  of  Asia  that  should  have  refused  to  join  would 
have  appeared  desirous  of  reaping  the  benefit  of  the  confeder- 
acy without  contributing  to  its  support.  The  allies  seem  to 
have  planned  2^.  perpetual  union.  Lumps  of  iron  were  thrown 
into  the  sea,  when  the  oath  of  federation  was  taken,  as  a 
symbol  that  it  should  be  binding  until  the  iron  should  float. 
The  league  remained  to  the  last  predominantly  Ionian  and 
maritime.  It  was  therefore  a  natural  rival  of  Sparta's  Dorian 
continental  league. 

Exercise.  —  1.  In  what  respects  was  the  Delian  league,  even  at  the 
beginning,  an  advance  on  the  Peloponnesian  league  ?  2.  Contrast  the 
services  of  Themistocles  and  Aristeides  to  Athens.  Could  Themistocles 
have  organized  the  Delian  league  ?  (The  second  exercise  may  be  framed 
as  a  question  for  debate.) 

182.  Work  and  Growth  of  the  Delian  League.  —  The  confeder- 
acy grew  rapidly  until  it  took  in  nearly  all  the  islands  of  the 
Aegean  and  the  cities  of  the  northern  and  eastern  coasts. 
The  Persians  were  expelled  from  the  whole  region.  Then  the 
great  general  of  the  league,  Cimon,  son  of  Miltiades,  carried 

1  Apparently  in  war  over  half  the  total  outlay,  though  possessing  less  than 
one  sixth  the  total  resources.    Holm,  II.  215 


160  GROWTH   OF  THE   ATHENIAN  EMPIRE.  [§  183 

the  war  beyond  the  Aegean,  and  won  his  most  famous  victory, 
in  466  B.C.,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Eurymedon  in  Pamphylia, 
where  in  one  day  he  destroyed  a  Persian  land  host  and  cap- 
tured a  fleet  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  vessels.  After  this  the 
Carian  and  Lycian  coasts  joined  the  confederacy.  The  cities 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Black  Sea,  too,  were  added ;  and  the  trade 
of  that  region  streamed  through  the  Hellespont  to  the 
Peiraeus.  Aristophanes  speaks  of  a  thousand  cities  in  the 
league,  but  only  two  hundred  and  eighty  are  known  by  name. 

183.  Changes  in  the  Character  of  the  League. — After  a  few 
years  the  character  of  the  union  altered  radically.  The 
details  are  not  known,  but  we  can  discover  two  general 
tendencies. 

a.  The  change  came  largely  by  a  natural  growth  —  because 
the  Athenians  were  willing  to  bear  burdens  and  accept  respon- 
sibilities, while  their  less  energetic  allies  preferred  peace  and 
quiet.  Many  cities  chose  to  increase  their  money  payments 
in  place  of  furnishing  men  and  ships,  so  that  before  long  the 
navy  was  solely  Athenian.  As  a  natural  result,  Athens  no 
longer  felt  it  needful  to  consult  the  allies  as  to  the  operations 
of  the  war;  the  congress  ceased  to  meet;  and  finally  the  treas- 
ury was  removed  from  Delos  to  Athens. 

6.  The  second  process  was  ev^n  more  significant,  changing 
not  only  the  practice,  but  also  the  theory,  of  the  union.  Even 
before  the  first  tendency  became  prominent,  single  states  here 
and  there  began  to  refuse  their  quotas  and  to  attempt  seces- 
sion. Persia,  they  thought,  was  no  longer  a  danger,  and  the 
need  for  the  league  had  passed  away.  But  of  course  the 
Athenian  fleet  patrolling  the  Aegean  was  the  only  reason  why 
the  Persians  did  not  reappear  there,  and  Athens  was  certainly 
right  in  holding  the  allies  to  their  engagements.  Cities  that 
rebelled  were  conquered  by  the  very  navy  their  contributions 
had  built  up;  but,  instead  of  being  brought  back  into  the 
union,  they  were  reduced  to  the  position  of  subjects  of  Athens. 
That  is,  they  were  no  longer  connected  with  the  other  cities 


§  184]  THE   DELIAN  LEAGUE.  161 

of  the  league  except  through  their  subjection  to  the  conquer- 
ing city,  to  which  they  were  bound  in  each  case  by  a  separate 
treaty  imposed  by  the  conqueror.  Athens  took  away  their 
fleets,  leveled  their  walls,  sometimes  remodeled  their  govern- 
ments upon  a  democratic  basis,  and  made  them  pay  tribute. 

184.  The  League  becomes  an  Athenian  Empire.  — We  know  of 
j)nly  a  few  such  rebellions ;  but  it  is  clear  that  gradually 
Athens  came  to  treat  most  of  the  other  cities  of  the  old 
league  much  as  she  did  these  conquered  cities.  The  confed- 
eracy of  equal  states  became  an  empire,  with  Athens  for  its 
"tyrant  city."  1 

By  450  B.C.  Lesbos,  Chios,  and  Samos  were  the  only  states 
of  the  league  possessing  anything  like  their  original  inde- 
pendence, and  even  these  had  no  voice  in  the  ipaperial  manage- 
ment. Besides  these,  however,  now  or  later,  Athens  had 
other  independent  allies  that  had  never  belonged  to  the  Delian 
Confederacy  —  like  Plataea,  Corcyra,  Naupactus,  and  Acar- 
nania,  in  central  Greece,  Neapolis  and  Eegium  in  Italy,  and 
Segesta  and  other  Ionian  cities  in  Sicily. 

On  the  whole,  despite  the  strong  Greek  tendency  to  city 
sovereignty,  the  subject  cities  seem  to  have  been  attached  to 
Athens.  Revolts  were  infrequent,  and  enemies  confessed  that 
the  bulk  of  the  people  looked  gratefully  to  Athens  for  protec- 
tion against  oligarchic  faction.  Athens  was  the  true  mother  of 
Ionian  democracy.  As  the  Athenian  Isocrates  said,  "Athens 
was  the  champion  of  the  masses,  the  enemy  of  dynasties,  deny- 
ing the  right  of  the  many  to  be  at  the  mercy  of  the  few." 
Everywhere  throughout  the  empire,  as  thousands  of  inscrip- 
tions show,  the  ruling  power  became  an  Assembly  and  Council 
like  those  at  Athens ;   but   the   arrangement  was  commonly 


1  See  Abbott,  II.  344-346,  for  an  inscription  showing  the  conditions  imposed 
by  Athens  upon  one  community.  Some  details  for  other  cities  are  given 
in  the  same  volume,  371-373.  Freeman,  Federal  Government,  I.  23-29,  gives 
a  good  comparison  between  the  subject  cities  and  X\x^  American  States  or 
British  colonies. 


162  GROWTH  OF  THE  ATHENIAN  EMPIRE.  [§  185 

brought  about  without  violence.  Later,  during  the  Pelopon- 
nesian  war  (§  211  ff.),  most  of  the  cities  remained  faithful 
long  after  they  might  have  revolted  with  impunity :  and  when 
rebellion  did  come  it  was  usually  preceded  by  internal  oligarchic 
revolution.  In  the  next  century,  too,  after  a  period  of  Spartan 
tyranny,  many  of  these  same  cities  again  sought  protection  and 
democracy  in  a  new  Athenian  league  (§  229). 

None  the  less,  it  was  plain,  by  460  b.c,  that  the  attempt  at  a  union  of 
Greek  states  on  the  basis  of  representation  and  equality  had  failed.  We 
can  see  now  that  the  indifference  of  the  Greeks  to  representation  and  to  any 
citizenship  outside  their  own  city  doomed  such  a  plan  from  the  first.  The 
confederation  was  fated  to  fall  to  pieces  or  to  be  consolidated  into  a  single 
imperial  state.  This  last  chance  to  make  an  Hellenic  nation  (imperialism) 
still  remained  ;  and  Athenian  success  would  no  doubt  have  been  happy 
for  Greece  and  for  the  world.  But  three  opposing  forces  proved  too 
strong :  the  omnipresent  tendency  to  city  independence  ;  the  bitter  hatred 
of  the  oligarchic  factions  in  the  cities  most  friendly  to  Athens  and  even 
in  Athens  itself ;  and  the  natural  jealousy  felt  by  cities  outside  the  em- 
pire, like  Corinth  and  Sparta.  The  conflict  between  the  imperial  Athenian 
democracy  and  these  forces  made  the  political  history  of  Greece  for  the 
rest  of  the  century;  and  the  fall  of  Athens  at  its  close  involved,  soon  after, 
the  fall  of  Hellas. 

185.   The   Rift   between   Athens   and  Sparta In  465   b.c. 

Athens  made  war  upon  Thasos,  a  revolted  member  of  the 
league.  After  a  two  years'  siege,  the  Thasians  applied  to 
Sparta  for  aid.  That  city  purposed  secretly  to  invade  Attica, 
although  the  two  states  were  still  in  alliance  under  the  league 
of  481  B.C.  The  treacherous  project  was  prevented  by  a  de- 
structive earthquake  at  Sparta,  which  was  followed  at  once  by 
a  desperate  revolt  of  the  Messenian  Helots.  Instead  of  attack- 
ing Athens,  the  hard-pressed  Spartans  called  upon  her  for  aid. 
Ephialtes,  leader  of  the  democratic  party  (§  200),  opposed  such 
a  step,  but  Cimon  urged  that  Athens  should  not  let  her  yoke- 
fellow be  destroyed  or  Greece  be  lamed.  The  generous  but  short- 
sighted policy  of  the  aristocratic  party  prevailed,  and  Cimon 
led  an  Athenian  army  into  the  Peloponnesus.  A  little  later, 
however,  the  Spartans,  suspecting  the  same  bad  faith  of  which 


§  186]  A  LAND  EMPIRE.  163 

they  knew  themselves  guilty,  dismissed  the  Athenians  insult- 
ingly. The  anti-Spartan  party  in  Athens  was  strengthened  by 
this  act.  Cimon  was  ostracized,  and  his  party  was  left  utterly 
helpless  for  many  years.  Athens  now  formally  renounced  her 
alliance  with  Sparta,  and  entered  into  treaty  with  ArgoSj 
Sparta's  sleepless  enemy.  Megara,  too,  joined  the  Athenian 
league,  to  secure  protection  against  Corinth,  and  so  gave 
^^thens  command  of  the  passes  from  the  Peloponnesus. 

186.  Marvelous  Activity  of  Athens :  Growth  of  a  Land  Em- 
pire.—  A  rush  of  startling  events  followed.  Corinth  and 
Aegina  declared  war  upon  Athens.  Aegina  was  blockaded, 
and  reduced  after  a  long  siege ;  Corinth  was  struck  blow  after 
blow,  even  in  the  Corinthian  gulf ;  and  Athenian  fleets  ravaged 
the  coasts  of  Laconia  and  burned  the  Spartan  dockyards.  At 
the  same  time,  while  keeping  up  her  fleet  in  the  Aegean,  Athens 
sent  a  great  armament  of  two  hundred  ships  (and  more,  later) 
to  aid  Egypt  in  a  revolt  against  Persia.^  The  expedition  was 
at  first  brilliantly  successful,  and  Persia  seemed  on  the  point 
of  being  deprived  of  all  contact  with  the  Mediterranean.  Else- 
where also  for  a  time  Athens  was  almost  uniformly  victorious. 
A  Spartan  army  crossed  the  Corinthian  gulf  and  appeared  in 
Boeotia  to  check  Athenian  progress  there.  It  won  a  partial 
victory  at  Tanagra,  —  the  first  real  battle  between  the  two 
great  states, — but  used  it  only  to  secure  an  undisturbed  re- 
treat into  the  Peloponnesus.  The  Athenians  at  once  reap- 
peared in  the  field,  crushed  the  Thebans  in  a  great  battle  at 
Oenophyta,  became  masters  of  all  Boeotia,  and,  expelling  the 
oligarchs,  set  up  democracies  in  the  various  towns.  Phods 
and  Locns  at  the  same  time  allied  themselves  to  Athens,  so 
that  she  seemed  in  a  fair  way  to  extend  her  land  empire  over 
all  central  Greece,  to  which  she  held  the  two  gates,  Thermop- 
ylae and  the  passes  of  the  Isthmus.     A  little  later,  part  of 

1  Such  a  fleet  required  forty  thousand  sailors  (two  hundred  to  a  ship),  and 
from  two  thousand  to  five  thousand  hoplites.  The  sailors,  however,  came 
largely  from  the  non-citizen  class,  and  some  perhaps  were  even  slaves. 


164  GROWTH  OF  THE   ATHENIAN  EMPIRE.  [§  187 

Tliessaly  was  brought  under  Athenian  influence,  and  Achaea  in 
the  Peloponnesus  itself  was  added  to  the  league.  Indeed  it  is 
impossible  even  to  mention  the  multiplied  instances  of  limit- 
less energy  and  splendid  daring  on  the  part  of  Athens  for  the 
few  years  after  460  e.g.,  while  her  empire  was  at  its  height. 
For  one  instance:  just  when  Athens'  hands  were  fullest  in 
Egypt  and  in  the  siege  of  Aegina,  Corinth  tried  a  diversion  by 
invading  Megaris.  Athens  did  not  recall  a  man,  but,  arming 
the  youths  and  the  old  men  past  age  of  service,  repelled  the 
invaders.  The  Corinthians,  stung  by  shame,  made  a  second, 
more  determined,  attempt,  and  were  again  repulsed  with  great 
slaughter.  It  was  at  this  time,  too,  that  the  city  completed 
her  fortifications  by  building  the  Long  Walls  from  Athens  to 
Peiraeus  —  a  measure  which  added  also  a  large  open  space  to 
the  city,  where  the  country  people  might  take  refuge  in  case  of 
invasion. 

187.  Loss  of  the  Land  Empire.  —  But  the  resources  of  Athens 
were  severely  strained,  and  a  sudden  series  of  stunning  blows 
well-nigh  exhausted  her.  Two  hundred  and  fifty  ships  and 
the  whole  army  in  Egypt  were  lost  —  a  disaster  that  would 
have  annihilated  almost  any  other  Greek  state.  Megara,  which 
had  itself  invited  an  Athenian  garrison,  now  treacherously 
massacred  it  and  joined  the  Peloponnesian  league.  A  Spartan 
army  entered  Attica  through  the  recovered  passes ;  and,  at  the 
same  moment,  Euboea  —  absolutely  essential  to  Athenian  safety 
—  burst  into  revolt.  All  Boeotia,  too,  except  Plataea,  fell  away : 
after  an  Athenian  defeat,  the  oligarchs  won  the  upper  hand  in 
its  various  cities  and  joined  themselves  to  Sparta. 

188.  The  Thirty  Years'  Truce,  and  Peace  with  Persia.  —  The 

activity  and  address  of  Pericles  (§  200)  saved  Attica  and 
Euboea,  but  the  other  continental  possessions  and  alliances 
were  for  the  most  part  lost,  and  in  445  B.C.  a  Tliirty  Tears^ 
Truce  was  concluded  between  the  contending  leagues. 

A  little  before  this,  according  to  a  somewhat  vague  account, 
by  the  Peace  of  Callias,  Persia  had  recognized  the  freedom  of 


»  •  »  »    » 

»   •»    »    » 


\ 


c       ' 


§  190]  MATERIAL   STRENGTH.  166 

the  Asiatic  Greeks  and  had  promised  to  send  no  warship  into 
the  Aegean.  In  any  case,  these  conditioDS  were  effectively- 
secured,  whether  by  express  treaty  or  not,  and  the  long  war 
with  Persia,  too,  came  to  a  close. 


II.  THE  EMPIRE  AND  THE  IMPERIAL  CITY  IN  PEACE.i 

"  The  Athens  of  the  fifth  century  was  a  great  state  in  a  higher  sense 
than  most  of  the  kingdoms  of  the  Middle  Ages.  .  .  .  For  the  space  of  a 
half  century  her  power  was  quite  on  a  par  with  that  of  Persia^  .  .  .  and 
the  Athenian  Empire  is  the  true  precursor  of  those  of  Macedonia  and 
i?ome."  — Holm,  IL  259. 

A.     Material  Strength. 

189.  Relative  Power.  —  Athens  had  failed  to  keep  her  con- 
tinental dominion,  and  the  second  chance  for  a  united  Hellas 
had  passed ;  but  at  the  moment  the  loss  of  this  territory  did 
not  seem  to  impair  her  strength.  The  maritime  empire  was 
saved  and  consolidated,  and,  for  a  generation  more,  the  Greeks 
of  that  empire  were  the  leaders  of  the  world  in  power  as  in 
culture.  They  had  proved  themselves  more  than  a  match  for 
Persia ;  the  mere  magic  of  the  Athenian  name  sufficed  to  re- 
strain Carthage  from  any  renewal  of  her  attack  upon  the  now 
weakened  Sicilian  Greeks ;  the  Athenian  power  in  Thrace  easily 
held  in  check  the  rising  Macedonian  kingdom ;  Eome  was  still 
a  barbarous  village  on  the  Tiber  bank.  The  center  of  physical 
power  in  the  world  was  imperial  Athens. 

.190.  Population. — The  cities  of  the  empire  counted  some 
three  millions  of  people.^  The  number  seems  small  to  moderns ; 
but  it  must  be  kept  in  mind  that  the  population  of  the  world 

1  The  intellectual  greatness  of  Athens  obscures  the  fact  sometimes  that  she 
stood  also  for  a  great  material  power  and  for  a  high  political  development. 
A  complete  survey  calls  for  all  three  topics.  The  latter  two  have  been  partly- 
discussed,  and  may  be  best  disposed  of  here  before  the  first  one  is  taken  up. 

2  See  Holm,  II.  223-224,  and  Cunningham's  Western  Civilization,  109,  for  a 
discussion  of  authorities.  The  most  cautious  inquiry  is  Beloch's  Die  Bevol- 
kerung  der  griechisch-romanischen  Welt  (1886). 


166  THE  ATHENIAN  EMPIRE   IN  PEACE.  [§191 

was  small,  and  that  the  Athenian  Empire  was  made  up  —  as 
no  other  empire  ever  has  been  —  solely  of  select,  cultured, 
wealthy,  progressive  communities.  Of  course,  slaves  made  a 
large  fraction  of  this  population.  Thus  Attica  itself  contained 
from  two  hundred  and  thirty-live  thousand  to  two  hundred  and 
seventy-five  thousand  people,  of  whom  from  forty  thousand  to 
one  hundred  thousand  were  slaves.^  Thirty  thousand  or  forty- 
five  thousand  more  were  metics.  This  left  a  citizen  population 
of  some  one.  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  or  one  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand,  of  whom  perhaps  thirty-five  thousand  were  adult 
males.  To  this  number  should  be  added  half  as  many  cleruchs 
whom  Pericles  had  settled  as  garrison  colonies  in  outlying  parts 
of  the  empire.  The  cleruchs  —  like  the  Koman  colonists  later, 
and  unlike  other  Greek  colonists  —  kept  their  enrollment  in  the 
Attic  demes  with  all  the  rights  of  citizenship,  though  of  course 
they  could  not  exercise  the  higher  political  rights  unless  they 
came  to  Athens  in  person.  They  were  mostly  from  the  poorer 
classes,  and  were  given  lands  in  the  new  settlements  sufficient 
to  raise  them  at  least  to  the  class  of  hoplites. 

191.  The  Imperial  Revenues  were  large  for  any  ancient  state, 
especially  for  one  that  did  not  drain  its  people  poor.  The  ruling 
city  drew  an  annual  income  of  about  four  hundred  talents 
(f  400,000  in  our  values)  from  her  Thracian  mines  and  from  the 
port  dues  and  the  taxes  on  metics.  The  tribute  from  the  sub- 
ject cities  amounted  to  half  as  much  again.  This  was  justly 
assessed,  and  it  bore  lightly  upon  the  prosperous  Greek  commu- 
nities. For  instance,  the  Asiatic  Greeks  paid  only  one  sixth  as 
much  as  they  had  previously  paid  Persia ;  and  the  tax  was  never 
any  considerable  fraction  of  what  it  would  have  cost  the  cities 
merely  to  defend  themselves  against  pirates,  had  Athenian  pro- 
tection been  removed.^  Indeed  the  whole  tribute  would  not  keep 


1  Older  estimates  said  four  hundred  thousand  slaves  —  a  number  now  abso- 
lutely discredited. 

2  A  good  discussion  is  in  Holm,  II.  214-216  and  223-226.    See  also  Abbott,  IL 
521. 


i  193]        GOVERNMENT  OF  THE   CITY  AND   EMPIRE.  167 

one  hundred  ships  manned  and  equipped  for  a  year,  to  say 
nothing  of  building  them ;  and  when  we  remember  the  stand- 
ing navy  in  the  Aegean  and  the  great  armaments  that  .Athens 
sent  repeatedly  against  Persia,  it  would  seem  that  she  bore  at 
least  her  share  of  the  imperial  burden. 

B.    Government  of  the  City  and  Empire. 

192.  Steps  in  Political  Development.  —  The  chief  steps  from 
the  constitution  of  Cleisthenes  to  that  of  Pericles  were :  (a)  the 
growth  of  the  office  of  general ;  (6)  the  continued  extension  of 
the  sphere  of  the  Assembly,  with  the  subordination  of  all  other 
parts  of  the  government  to  it ;  (c)  the  limitation  of  the  Areop- 
agus and  the  growth  of  the  dicast  courts;  and  (d)  the  intro- 
duction and  wide  extension  of  state  pay  for  public  service. 
There  was  no  general  recasting  of  the  constitution  at  one 
moment,  as  there  had  been  at  the  time  of  Solon  and  of  Cleis- 
thenes ;  and  the  change  was  much  more  in  the  spirit  of  the 
people  than  in  the  outer  form  of  institutions.  The  first  two 
steps  mentioned  above  were  altogether  the  result  of  a  gradual 
development,  independent  of  legislation.  The  others  were 
brought  about  by  piecemeal  enactment.  Ephialtes,  and  after- 
ward Pericles,  were  the  guiding  spirits  in  the  development.^ 

193.  The  Generals  and  the  "Leaders  of  the  People."  —  In  487 
B.C.  Solon's  method  of  choosing  archons  by  lot  (§  127  and  note) 
had  been  restored.  Partly  as  a  result  of  this,  the  office  grew 
unimportant,  and  its  powers  passed  to  the  board  of  ten  gen- 
erals, who  became  the  real  administrators  of  the  empire,  sub- 
ject to  the  sovereign  Assembly.  It  was  on  their  proposals,  as  a 
rule,  that  troops  were  levied  and  equipped,  ships  built  and 
manned,  and  moneys  raised.  In  particular,  they  managed  for- 
eign relations,  carried  on  all  intercourse  with  ambassadors,  and 
watched  the  movements  of  other  powers  through  their  agents 

1  The  extension  of  eligibility  for  oflBce  to  Solon's  "  fourth  class,"  which  it 
has  been  customary  to  credit  to  Aristeides  just  after  Plataea,  is  flatly  denied 
by  Aristotle's  newly  discovered  Constitution. 


168  THE   ATHENIAN  EMPIRE   IN  PEACE.  [§  194 

abroad.     Thej  could  call  special  meetings  of  the  Assembly  at 
will,  and  were  conceded  precedence  in  addressing  it.^ 

With  the  development  of  the  Assembly's  power  (§  194)  there 
grew  up,  alongside  these  official  administrators,  a  semi-official 
position  of  "  leader  of  the  people."  The  written  law  knew  no 
such  office;  but  the  statesman  most  trusted  by  the  popular 
party  could  exercise  an  authority  greater  than  that  of  any 
officer  of  the  constitution.  It  became  desirable,  therefore,  from 
every  point  of  view,  that  the  Board  of  Generals  should  contain 
the  "  leader  of  the  people  "  for  the  time  being,  to  advocate  its 
plans  in  the  Assembly ;  and  such  a  union  was  kept  up  through 
all  this  period.'  A  "  leader  of  the  people  "  who  was  also  pres- 
ident of  the  Board  of  Generals,  held  a  position  in  some  ways 
similar  to  an  English  prime  minister's. 

194.  The  Assembly.^  —  Cleisthenes  had  left  the  Assembly 
theoretically  sovereign,  but  in  fact  its  various  agents  at  first 
exercised  independent  authority.  It  was  only  after  some  time 
that  the  Assembly  came  to  think  it  proper  to  supervise  and 
check  these  other  forces  day  by  day ;  and  it  was  only  by  prac- 
tice that  it  learned  how  to  do  so  effectively.  But  in  the  Age 
of  Pericles  this  had  come  to  pass.  All  other  powers  had  be- 
come the  obedient  servants  of  the  Assembly.  The  Council  of 
Five  Hundred  existed  not  to  guide  it,  but  to  do  its  bidding. 
The  generals  were  its  creatures  and  might  be  deposed  by  it  any 
day  of  their  short  term  of  office.  No  act  of  government  was 
too  small  or  too  great  for  it  to  deal  with.  The  Assembly  of 
Athens  was  to  the  greatest  empire  of  the  world  in  that  day  all, 
and  more  than  all,  that  a  New  England  town  meeting  a  century 
ago  was  to  its  little  unit  of  government.  The  world  has  never 
seen  such  a  phenomenon  elsewhere. 

The  Assembly  held  forty  stated  meetings  a  year  and  many 
special  meetings,  so  that  a  patriotic  citizen  was  called  upon  to 
give  one  day  in  six  or  seven  to  the  state  in  this  regard  alone. 

1  On  the  Generals,  read  Holm  II.  201,  202. 

a  Read  Grant,  141-149.    Advanced  students  may  consult  Gilbert,  285-310. 


§  196]        GOVERNMENT  OF  THE  CITY   AND  EMPIRE.  169 

After  the  period  of  Athenian  greatness  was  past,  it  was  found 
needful  to  pay  citizens  for  the  time  given  to  these  meetings  ; 
but,  while  Athens  ruled  an  empire,  patriotism  alone  brought 
men  to  grant  this  serious  tax  upon  their  time. 

195.  The  Waning  of  the  Areopagus — The  decline  of  the 
archonship  to  an  ornamental  office  involved  a  like  fate  for  the 
Areopagus  —  made  up,  as  it  was,  of  ex-archons.  As  a  body 
holding  office  for  life,  it  was  always  unpopular.  During  the 
Persian  War,  it  is  true,  it  had  won  high  credit,  justly ;  and 
for  some  years  afterward  it  was  allowed  to  resume  something 
of  its  ancient  importance  in  the  state,  but,  after  the  banishment 
of  Cimon,  Ephialtes  reduced  it  to  a  minor  criminal  court. 

196.  The  Dicasteries.  —  The  chief  judicial  business  fell  now  to 
large  popular  courts,  whose  importance  became  fully  developed 
under  Pericles.  Six  thousand  citizens  were  chosen  by  lot  each 
year  (probably  only  from  those  who  offered  themselves),  of 
whom  one  thousand  were  held  in  reserve,  while  the  others  were 
divided  into  ten  jury  courts  of  five  hundred  each,  called  dicas- 
teries. For  important  cases,  several  of  these  were  sometimes 
thrown  together. 

To  these  bodies  the  Assembly  turned  over  the  trial  of  offi- 
cials, so  that  they  became  high  courts  of  impeachment.  It 
was  with  a  view  to  this  duty  that  each  dicast  took  an  oath 
"  abovfe  all  things  to  favor  neither  tyranny  nor  oligarchy,  nor 
in  any  way  to  prejudice  the  sovereignty  of  the  people."  Besides 
performing  this  semi-political  function,  the  dicasteries  made  : 
(a)  supreme  imperial  courts  to  settle  all  disputes  between  sep- 
arate cities  of  the  empire ;  (6)  courts  of  appeal  for  all  important 
law  cases  in  each  of  the  subject  cities ;  and  (c)  the  ordinary 
courts  for  all  Athenians.  A  dicastery  was  both  judge  and  jury ; 
it  decided  by  majority  vote,  and  no  appeal  was  possible. 

Large  bodies  of  this  kind,  without  the  check  that  even  our 
smaller  juries  have  in  trained  judges  to  guide  them,  gave  many 
wrong  and  evil  verdicts,  no  doubt.  Passion  and  emotion  and 
bribery  all  interfered,  at  times,  with  even-handed  justice  ;  but, 


170  THE  ATHENIAN   EMPIRE   IN  PEACE.  [§  197 

on  the  whole,  the  system  worked  astonishingly  well.  Probably 
no  other  community  has  ever  been  educated  up  to  a  point 
where  it  could  have  made  so  great  a  success  of  such  judicial 
machinery.  In  particular,  it  is  notable  that  any  citizen  of 
a  subject  city  was  sure  to  get  redress,  if  wronged  by  an 
Athenian  officer.  The  public  conscience  was  commendably 
sensitive  upon  that  matter. 

197.  State  Pay —  Since  these  courts  exercised  so  great 
weight  and  tried  political  offenders,  it  was  essential  to  the 
democratic  idea  that  they  should  not  fall  altogether  into  the 
hands  of  the  rich.  To  prevent  this  Pericles  introduced  pay- 
ment for  jury  duty.  The  amount  (three  obols  a  day,  or  about 
ten  cents)  would  furnish  a  day's  sustenance  for  one  person  in 
Athens,  but  it  did  not  suffice  for  a  family.^  Moreover,  even  at 
such  pay,  a  dicast  could  hardly  count  upon  employment  on 
more  than  two  hundred  days  in  the  year ;  and  it  is  clear  that 
jury  pay  could  not  have  been  a  serious  financial  object  with 
any  large  portion  of  the  citizens,  especially  when  it  is  remem- 
bered that  Athens  had  no  pauper  class. 

Afterward,  Pericles  extended  the  principle  of  public  pay- 
ment to  other  political  services.  Aristotle  says  that  some 
twenty  thousand  men  —  over  half  the  whole  body  of  citizens  — 
were  constantly  in  the  pay  of  the  state.  Half  of  this  number, 
however,  were  engaged  in  some  form  of  military  service,  and  in 
some  cases  were  not  citizens.  But,  besides  the  six  thousand 
jurymen,  there  were  the  five  hundred  senators,  seven  hundred 
city  magistrates,  seven  hundred  more  officials  representing 
Athens  throughout  the  empire,  and  many  inferior  state  ser- 


1  It  was  about  one  third  the  average  d&y's  wage  for  a  workingman,  or  one 
fifth  that  of  a  skilled  artisan.  The  older  estimates  of  wages  in  Athens  seem 
to  have  been  erroneous.  See  a  discussion  in  Ilellenic  Studies,  1895,  pp.  229- 
247.  The  enemies  of  the  system  ridiculed  paid  juries,  as  hostile  critics  may 
ridicule  them,  indeed,  with  us,  by  pointing  to  the  "  professional  jurymen  " 
known  in  parts  of  our  country,  who  for  the  sake  of  the  fee  hang  about  the 
courtroom  to  get  places  when  the  regular  panel  is  exhausted.  Such  ridicule 
does  not  condemn  the  system. 


§  198]        GOVERNMENT  OF  THE   CITY   AND   EMPIRE.  171 

vants  —  keepers  of  public  buildings,  overseers  of  markets  and 
the  ports,  jailers,  and  the  like ;  so  that  always  from  a  third  to 
a  fourth  of  the  citizens  were  in  the  civil  service. 

Pericles  has  been  accused  sometimes  of  corrupting  the  Athe- 
nians by  the  introduction  of  such  payment.  But  there  is  no 
evidence  that  the  Athenians  were  corrupted  under  the  system  ; 
and  further,  such  a  system  was  inevitable  when  the  democracy 
of  a  little  city  became  the  master  of  an  empire.  It  was  quite 
as  natural  and  proper  as  is  the  payment  of  congressmen  and 
judges  with  us. 

In  the  United  States,  only  one  man  in  about  a  hundred  ever  holds  even 
a  nomination  for  office,  though  our  citizens  give  more  universal  attention 
to  politics  than  is  the  case  in  any  other  modern  country.  Athens  de- 
manded the  services  of  all  her  citizens  over  half  the  time  (counting  the 
military  service) .  Of  course,  such  a  system  involved  public  pay  for  the 
whole  population  of  the  ruling  city. 

Sparta,  it  will  be  remembered,  attained  a  less  desirable  end 
in  a  less  desirable  manner.  She  kept  her  whole  citizen  class 
on  constant  military  footing  by  giving  them  the  free  use  of 
state  slaves  to  till  their  lands.  In  both  Athens  and  Sparta  the 
practice  was  totally  different  from  the  later  custom,  with  which 
it  is  sometimes  classed  (§  414),  of  distributing  free  corn  as  a 
gratuity  or  a  bribe  to  the  rabble  of  Rome. 

198.  Political  Capacity  of  the  Average  Athenian.  —  Many  of 
the  numerous  offices  in  Athens  (nearly  all  the  higher  ones, 
in  fact)  could  be  held  only  once  by  the  same  man,  so  that  each 
Athenian  citizen  could  count  upon  serving  his  city  at  some  time 
in  almost  every  public  capacity.  Politics  was  his  occupation; 
office-holding,  his  normal  function.  An  unusually  high  average 
of  intelligence  is  the  only  explanation  of  the  fact  that  such 
a  system  worked.  It  certainly  did  work  well.  With  all  its 
faults,  the  empire  was  vastly  superior  to  the  rude  despotism 
that  followed  in  Greece  under  Sparta,  or  the  anarchy  under 
Thebes ;  it  gave  to  a  large  part  of  the  Hellenic  world  a  peace  and 
security  never  enjoyed  before,  nor  again  until  the  rise  of  Roman 


172  THE  ATHENIAN  EMPIRE  IN  PEACE.  [§  199 

power ;  while  Athens  itself,  during  and  after  its  empire,  was  bet- 
ter and  more  gently  governed  than  oligarchic  cities  like  Corinth. 
Indeed,  there  is  reason  in  the  contention  of  Edward  Free- 
man that  the  average  Athenian's  political  training  and  ability 
resembled  more  nearly  that  of  the  average  member  of  Parlia- 
ment (or  of  the  American  Congress)  than  that  merely  of  the 
average  citizen  of  England  or  America. 

"  Moderns  are  apt  to  blame  the  Athenian  Democracy  for  putting  power 
in  hands  unfit  to  use  it.  The  truer  way  of  putting  the  case  would  be  to 
say  that  the  Athenian  Democracy  made  a  greater  number  of  citizens  fit 
to  use  power  than  could  be  made  fit  by  any  other  system.  .  .  .  The 
Assembly  was  an  assembly  of  citizens  —  of  average  citizens  without  sift- 
ing or  selection ;  but  it  was  an  assembly  of  citizens  among  whom  the 
political  average  stood  higher  than  it  ever  did  in  any  other  state.  .  .  . 
The  Athenian,  by  constantly  hearing  questions  of  foreign  policy  and 
domestic  administration  argued  by  the  greatest  orators  the  world  ever 
saw,  received  a  political  training  which  nothing  else  in  the  history  of  man- 
kind has  been  found  to  equal."  ^ 

199.  Imperfect  Nature  of  the  Democracy;  the  Final  Verdict 
upon  the  Empire.  —  It  is  easy  to  see  that  the  Athenian  system 
was  imperfect,  tried  by  later  standards  of  representative  insti- 
tutions ;  but  it  is  more  to  the  point  to  see  that  it  was  an  ad- 
vance in  political  development  over  anything  before  attempted. 
To  be  sure,  in  Attica  itself  the  thirty-five  thousand  male  citizens 
were  less  than  half  the  adult  male  population.  Even  adding 
the  cleruchs,  the  fifty  thousand  cannot  have  been  more  than 
one  fifteenth  of  the  adult  males  of  the  empire;  while  —  worse 
than  the  mere  limitation  in  numbers  —  they  stood  all  for  one 
locality,  and  admission  to  their  ranks  came  only  by  blood 
descent.     It  certainly  is  to  be  regretted  that  Athens  could  not 

1  Freeman,  Federal  Government.  On  the  advantages  of  small  states,  read 
pp.  37-43  (first  edition),  from  which  these  passages  are  taken.  Read  also 
a  spicy  paragraph  in  Wheeler's  Alexander,  116,  117.  Galton  argues  that  the 
average  natural  ability  of  the  Athenian  was  as  much  higher  than  ours  as  ours 
is  above  that  of  the  African  negro  {Hereditary  Genius,  342,  American  edition, 
1887) ;  but  probably  Freeman  is  nearer  right  in  placing  the  emphasis  upon 
difference  in  training. 


200] 


POLITICAL  PARTIES  AND   LEADERS. 


173 


continue  to  admit  her  resident  aliens  to  citizenship,  as  had  been 
done  once  by  Cleisthenes ;  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  she  could 
not  extend  to  the  men  of  her  subject  and  allied  cities  that 
imperial  citizenship  which  she  did  leave  to  her  cleruchs,  as 
Eome  was  to  do  much  later.  But  the  important  thing  is,  that 
she  had  moved  farther  in  both  directions  than  had  any  other 
state  up  to  this  time.  The  admission  of  metics  by  Cleisthenes 
and  the  cleruch  citizenship  were  notable  advances.  Tlie 
broadest  policy  of  the  age  ought  not  to  he  condemned  as  narrow. 

200.  Leaders  and  Parties :  Pericles.  —  A  few  words  will  sum- 
marize party  history  up  to  the  leadership  of  Pericles.  All 
factions  in  Athens  had  coalesced  pa- 
triotically against  Persia,  and  after- 
ward in  fortifying  the  city ;  but  the 
brief  era  of  good  feeling  was  followed 
by  a  renewal  of  party  strife.  The 
aristocrats  rallied  around  Cimon, 
while  the  two  wings  of  the  democrats 
were  led  at  first,  as  before  the  inva- 
sion, by  Aristeides  and  Themistocles. 
Themistocles  was  ostracized,^  and  his 
friend  Ephialtes  became  the  leader  of 
the  extreme  democrats.  When  Ephi- 
altes was  assassinated  by  aristocratic 
opponents,  Pericles  stepped  into  his 
place. 

The  aristocratic  party  had  been 
ruined  by  its  pro-Spartan  policy 
(§  185);  the  two  divisions  of  the  democrats  reunited,  and 
for  a  quarter  of  a  century  Pericles  was  in  practice  as  abso- 
lute as  a  dictator,  so  that  Thucydides  characterizes  Athens 
during  this  period  of  he'r  greatness  as  "  a  democracy  in  name 
only,  in  reality  ruled  by  its  ablest  citizen."     Pericles  belonged 


Pericles.  —  A  portrait  bust, 
now  in  the  Vatican. 


1  Special  topic  :  Themistocles  after  Plataea ;  note  opposing  views,  and  see 
especially  Cox,  Athenian  Empire,  15-24. 


174  THE  ATHENIAN  EMPIRE   IN  PEACE.  [§  201 

to  the  ancient  nobility  of  Athens,  though  to  families  that  had 
always  taken  the  side  of  thie  people.  His  mother  was  the 
niece  of  Cleisthenes  the  reformer,  and  his  father  had  im- 
peached Miltiades,  so  that  the  enmity  between  Cimon  and 
Pericles  was  hereditary.  The  supremacy  of  Pericles  rested  in 
no  way  upon  the  flattering  arts  of  later  popular  leaders.  His 
proud,  austere  reserve  verged  on  haughtiness,  and  he  was 
rarely  seen  in  public.  He  scorned  to  display  emotion.  His 
stately  gravity  and  unruffled  calm  were  styled  Olympian  by 
his  admirers  —  who  added  that,  like  Zeus,  he  could  on  occasion 
overbear  opposition  by  the  majestic  thunder  of  his  oratory. 
His  great  authority  came  from  no  public  office.  He  was  elected 
general,  it  is  true,  fifteen  times,  but  in  the  board  he  had  most 
weight  chiefly  because  of  his  unofficial  position  as  recognized 
"  leader  of  the  people  "  (§  193).  It  must  be  remembered  that, 
general  or  not,  he  was  master  only  so  long  as  he  could  carry 
the  Assembly,  and  that  he  was  compelled  to  defend  each  of 
his  measures  against  all  who  chose  to  attack  it.  The  long  and 
steady  confidence  given  him  honors  the  people  of  Athens  no 
less  than  the  statesman,  and  his  noblest  eulogy  is  that  which 
he  claimed  for  himself  upon  his  death-bed  —  that,  with  all  his 
authority,  and  despite  the  virulence  of  party  strife,  "  no  Athe- 
nian has  had  to  put  on  mourning  because  of  me." 

He  stated  his  own  policy  clearly,  and  in  his  lifetime,  on  the 
whole,  carried  it  to  success.  As  to  the  empire,  he  sought  to 
make  Athens  at  once  the  ruler  and  the  teacher  of  Hellas,  the 
political,  intellectual,  and  artistic  center ;  and,  witiiin  the  city 
itself,  he  wished  the  people  to  rule  not  merely  in  theory,  but 
in  fact,  as  the  best  means  of  training  themselves  for  high 
responsibilities. 

C.   Intellectual  and  Artistic  Athens. 

201.  The  True  Significance  of  Athens.  —  After  all,  in  politics 
and  war,  Hellas  has  had  superiors.  Her  true  service  to  man- 
kind and  her  imperishable  glory  lie  in  her  intellectual  and 
artistic  development.     It  was  in  the  Athens  of  Pericles  that 


202] 


INTELLECTUAL  AND  ARTISTIC  ATHENS. 


175 


these  phases  of  Greek  life  developed  most  fully,  and  this  fact 
makes  the  real  significance  of  that  city  in  history. 


1.  Ptirthenon 

2.  Erechtheum 

3.  Propylcua 
i.  Pryti 
6.  Temple  of  Atelepiu^ 

6.  Monument  of 
Lyaierates 

7.  Eleusinium 
BouUuterion 

9.  Tholoe 

10.  TempUofFuriee 

11.  Temple  of  Are* 

12.  So-called  Prison 
of  Socrates 


Map  of  Athens,  with  some  structures  of  the  Roman  period. 

202.  Architecture  and  Sculpture.  —  Part  of  the  policy  of  Peri- 
cles was  to  adorn  Athens  from  the  surplus  revenues  of  the 
empire.     The  justice  of  this  may  easily  be  questioned,  but  the 


176  THE   ATHENIAN  EMPIRE   IN   PEACE.  [§202 

result,  just  at  that  period  of  the  perfection  of  Greek  art,  was 
to  make  the  city  the  most  beautiful  in  the  world,  so  that,  ever 
since,  her  mere  ruins  have  enthralled  the  admiration  of  men. 
Everywhere  arose  temples,  colonnades,  porticoes,  theaters  — 
inimitable  to  this  day. 

"  No  description  can  give  anything  but  a  very  inadequate  idea  of  the 
splendor,  the  strength,  the  beauty,  which  met  the  eye  of  the  Athenian, 
whether  he  walked  round  the  fortifications,  or  through  the  broad  streets 
of  the  Peiraeus,  or  along  the  Long  Walls,  or  in  the  shades  of  the  Acad- 
emy, or  amidst  the  tombs  of  the  Ceramicus ;  whether  he  chaffered  in  the 
market  place,  or  attended  assemblies  in  the  Pnyx,  or  loitered  in  one  of 
the  numerous  porticoes,  or  watched  the  exercises  in  the  Gymnasia,  or 
listened  to  music  in  the  Odeum  or  plays  in  the  theaters,  or  joined  the 
throng  of  worshipers  ascending  to  the  great  gateway  of  the  Acropolis. 
And  this  magnificence  was  not  the  result  of  centuries  of  toil ;  it  was  the 
work  of  fifty  years.  .  .  .  Athens  became  a  vast  workshop,  in  which  ar- 
tisans of  every  kind  found  employment,  all,  in  their  various  degrees, 
contributing  to  the  execution  of  the  plans  of  the  master  minds,  Pheidias, 
Ictinus,  Callicrates,  Muesicles,  and  others." — Abbott,  Pericles^  303-308. 

The  center  of  this  architectural  splendor  was  the  ancient 
citadel  of  the  Acropolis,  no  longer  needed  as  a  fortification, 
but  crowned  with  white  marble,  and  devoted  to  purposes  of 
religion  and  art.  The  "  holy  hill "  was  inaccessible  except  on 
the  west.  Here  was  built  a  stately  stairway  of  sixty  marble 
steps,  leading  to  a  series  of  noble  colonnades  and  porticoes 
(the  Fropylaea)  of  surpassing  beauty.  From  these  the  visitor 
emerged  upon  the  leveled  top  of  the  Acropolis,  to  find  himself 
surrounded  by  temples  and  statues,  any  one  of  which  alone 
might  make  the  fame  of  the  proudest  modern  city.  Just  in 
front  of  the  entrance  stood  the  colossal  bronze  statue  of  Athena 
the  Defender,  whose  broad  spear  point  glittering  in  the  sun  was 
the  first  sign  of  the  city  to  the  mariner  far  out  at  sea.  On  the 
right  of  the  entrance  and  a  little  to  the  rear  was  the  temple 
of  the  Wingless  Victory,  and  near  the  center  of  the  open  space 
rose  the  larger  structures  of  the  Erechtheum^  and  the  Par- 

1  Special  reports :  fuller  accounts  of  all  these  works  may  be  called  for  with 
profit. 


§202]  INTELLECTUAL  AND   ARTISTIC  ATHENS.  177 


178 


THE   ATHENIAN  EMPIRE   IN  PEACE. 


[§202 


thenon.     This  last,  the  temple  of  the  virgin  goddess  Athene 
(Parthenon  means  "maiden's  chamber"),  remains  absolutely 


The  Parthenon  To-day,  from  the  northwest. 

peerless  in  its  loveliness  among  the  buildings  of  the  world. 
It  was  of  no  great  size,  —  only  some  one  hundred  feet  by  two 


Figures  from  the  Pakthk-Nuj-.  i  iix^zi.. 


§202] 


INTELLECTUAL  AND  ARTISTIC   ATHENS. 


179 


hundred  and  fifty  (the  proportions,  more  exactly,  are  as  four  to 
nine), — while  the  marble  pillars  supporting  its  low  pediment 
rose  only  thirty-four  feet  from  their  base  of  three  receding 
steps,  so  that  the  effect  was  due  wholly,  not  to  the  sublimity 

and      grandeur     of 

vast  masses,  but  to 
the  perfection  of 
proportion,  to  ex- 
quisite beauty  of 
line,  and  to  the  deli- 
cacy and  profusion 
of  ornament.  On 
this  structure,  in- 
deed, was  lavished 
without  stint  the 
highest  art  of  the 
art  capital  of  all 
time.  Pheidias  and 
his  disciples  cared 
for  the  ornamenta- 
tion within  and 
without.  Fifty  life- 
size,  or  colossal, 
statues  in  the  pedi- 
ments, and  the  four 
thousand  square 
feet  of  smaller  re- 
liefs m  frieze  and  rp^j,  Hermes  of  Praxiteles. 
metopes,  were  all 
finished  with  the  same  perfect  skill,  even  in  the  unseen  parts. 


"The  beauty  and  perfection  of  all  the  invisible  parts  are  such  that  the 
cost  of  labor  and  money  must  have  been  enormous.  There  is  no  show 
whatever  for  much  of  this  extraordinary  finish,  which  can  only  be  seen 
by  going  on  the  roof  or  by  opening  a  wall.  Yet  the  religiousness  of  the 
unseen  work  has  secured  that  what  is  seen  shall  be  perfect  with  no 
ordinary  perfection."  —  Mahaffy,  Greek  Civilization,  143-144. 


180 


THE  ATHENIAN  EMPIRE  IN  PEACE. 


[§203 


Pheidias  still  ranks  the  greatest  of  sculptors,  rivaled,  if  at 
all,  only  by  his  pupil,  Praxiteles.  Much  of  the  work  on  the 
Acropolis  he  merely  designed,  but  the  great  statues  of  Athene 
were  his  special  work.  The  bronze  statue  has  already  been 
mentioned.  Beside  this,  there  was,  within  the  Parthenon, 
a  smaller,  but  still  colossal,  statue  in  gold  and  ivory,  even 
more  notable.  These  two  works  divide  the  honor  of  Pheid- 
ias' great  fame  with  his  Zeus  at  Olympia,  which,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  ancients,  surpassed  all  other  sculpture  in  gran- 


The  Acropolis,  as  restored  by  Rehlender. 

deur  of  conception  and  in  awe-inspiring  attributes.  Pheidias 
said  that  he  planned  the  latter  work,  thinking  of  Homer's 
Zeus,  at  the  nod  of  whose  ambrosial  locks  Olympus  trembled. 
The  Hermes  of  Praxiteles  is  one  of  the  few  great  works  of 
antiquity  that  survive  to  us;  of  his  Marble  Faun  we  have  a 
famous  copy,  which  plays  a  part  in  Hawthorne's  novel. 

203.  Painting.  —  In  sculpture,  then,  the  Greeks  remain  easily 
masters.  About  their  painting  we  know  less.  Until  the  age 
of  Pericles  that  art  had  been  used  chiefly  to  decorate  vases ; 
now  first  it  became  independent  in  the  work  of  Polygnotus, 


§203]  INTELLECTUAL  AND   ARTISTIC   ATHENS. 


181 


182 


THE  ATHENIAN   EMPIRE   IN  PEACE. 


[§204 


an  alien  Greek,  upon  whom  the  Athenians  conferred  citizen- 
ship, and  who  assisted  in  adorning  the  temples  of  the  Acrop- 
olis. A  higher  development  in  technique  came  later  (§  256), 
but  Polygnotus  remains  famous  for  a  lofty  sublimity  of  style. 
It  was  said  that  it  was  good  for  the  young  to  look  upon  his 
work,  for  he  painted  men  "  as  they  ought  to  be." 

204.   The  Drama.  —  In  the  age  of  Pericles,  the  chief  form  of 
poetry  became  the  tragic  drama  —  the  highest  development  of 


Aeschylus.  Euripides. 

Portrait  busts,  now  in  the  Capitoline  Museum. 

Greek  literature.  As  the  tenth  century  was  the  epic  age,  and 
the  seventh  and  sixth  the  lyric,  so  the  fifth  century  begins  the 
dramatic  period. 

The  drama  originated  in  the  songs  and  dances  of  a  chorus  in 
honor  of  Dionysus,  god  of  wine.  The  leader  of  the  chorus 
came  at  length  to  recite  stories  in  the  intervals  between  the 
songs.  Thespis  (§  131)  at  Athens,  in  the  age  of  Peisistratus,  is 
said  to  have  developed  this  leader  into  an  actor,  apart  from 
the  chorus  and  carrying  on  dialogue  with  it.  Now  Aeschylus 
added  another  actor,  and  his  younger  contemporary,  Sophocles, 


§204] 


INTELLECTUAL  AND   ARTISTIC  ATHENS. 


183 


a  third.  Aeschylus,  Sophocles,  and  their  successor,  Eunpidesj 
are  the  three  greatest  Greek  tragedians.  They  carried  this 
noble  form  of  literature  to  its  highest  expression.  Together 
they  produced  some  two  hundred  plays,  of  which  nine  tenths 
are  lost. 

The  Greek  drama  will  not  admit  readily  of  comparison  with 
the  modern  drama.  Sophocles  and  Shakespeare  differ  some- 
what as  the  Parthenon 
differs  from  a  vast  Gothic 
cathedral.  The  "unities" 
of  time  and  place  were 
strictly  preserved  by  the 
Greek;  the  scene  never 
changed,  and  all  the  action 
had  to  be  such  as  could 
have  taken  place  within 
one  day ;  everything  else 
necessary  to  understand 
the  action  had  to  be  told 
by  one  of  the  actors.  The 
plays  were  presented, 
however,  in  sets  of  three 
(a  trilogy),  so  that  a  longer 
series  of  connected  events 
could  be  treated  by  the 
same  dramatist.  Never 
more  than  three  actors 
appeared  at  once,  but  the 
chorus  continued  as  an 
important   factor,  to   add 

explanations  and  to  voice  the  spectators'  judgment,  "  to  breathe 
forth  the  fire  and  shed  the  tears  of  the  play."  ^ 

Attic  comedy  arose  also  from  the  worship  of  the  wine  god  — 


Sophocles       a  i.rA  i  i-statue,  now  in  the 
Lateran  Museum  at  Borne. 


1  Some  idea  of  the  nature  of  the  Greek  tragedy  may  be  obtained  by  read- 
ing the  best  modern  translations  and  imitations,  like  Browning's  Agamemnon 
and  his  Balaustion's  Adventure. 


184 


THE   ATHENIAN   EMPIRE   IN  PEACE. 


[§205 


not  from  the  great  religious  festivals,  however,  but  from  the 
ruder  village  merrymakings,  marked  by  indecent  rites  and 
orgies.  It  kept  a  scurrilous  license  throughout  the  century, 
and  was  used  to  attack  public  characters  like  Pericles  and  Soc- 
rates. Still,  its  great  master,  Aristophanes,  for  his  wit  and 
genius,  must  ever  remain  one  of  the  bright  names  in  literature. 

205.   Pericles'  Policy  as  to  Theater  Money.  —  The  great  Thea- 
ter of  Dionysus,  in  Athens,  was  on  the  southeast  slope  of  the 


Theater  of  Dionysus  at  Athens.  —  Present  condition,  looking  toward 
the  Acropolis. 

Acropolis  —  the  rising  seats,  cut  in  a  semicircle  into  the  rocky 
hill,  looking  forth,  beyond  the  stage,  over  the  blue  Aegean.  It 
could  accommodate  practically  the  whole  free  male  population 
of  the  city.  Here,  twice  a  year,  for  some  days,  the  master- 
pieces of  the  Greek  drama  were  presented.  Pericles  secured 
from  the  public  treasury  the  admission  fee  for  each  citizen  who 
chose  to  ask  for  it.  This  measure  was  altogether  different  from 
the  payment  of  officers  and  dicasts,  and  perhaps  came  nearer 


206] 


INTELLECTUAL  AND   ARTISTIC   ATHENS. 


185 


Theater  of  Dionysus  at  Athens.  —  Restoration,  looking  from  the  hillside. 

the  vicious  distribution  of  gratuities  to  a  populace;  but  it 
must  be  kept  in  mind  that  the  Greek  stage  was  the  modern 
pulpit  and  press  in  one.  The  practice,  on  the  whole,  was  rather 
to  advance  religious  and  intel- 
lectual training  than  to  give 
amusement.  It  was  a  form  of 
adult  education  at  state  ex- 
pense. 

206.  History.  —  Prose  litera- 
ture appears  in  history,  philoso- 
phy, and  the  essay.  The  three 
great  historians  of  the  period 
are  Herodotus,  Thucydides,  and 
Xenophon.  For  charm  of  nar- 
rative they  have  never  been  ex- 
celled. Herodotus  was  a  native 
of  Halicarnassus ;  he  traveled 
widely,  lived  long  at  Athens 
as  the  friend  of  Pericles,  and 
finally     in     Italy    composed    his    Thucydides.  — Capitoline  Museum. 


186  THE  ATHENIAN  EMPIRE  IN  PEACE.  [§207 

great  History  of  the  Persian  War,  with  an  introduction  cover- 
ing the  world's  history  up  to  that  event.  Thucydides  wrote 
the  History  of  the  Peloponnesian  War  (§  211  ff.)  to  the  year 
410  B.C.  Xenophon,  who  belongs  rather  to  the  next  century, 
completed  this  story,  and  gave  us,  with  other  works,  the  Anah- 
asiSf  an  account  of  the  expedition  of  the  Ten  Thousand 
Greeks  through  the  Persian  Empire  in  401  b.c.  (§  222). 

207.  Philosophy.  —  The  age  saw  a  rapid  development  in 
philosophy  —  centered  also  at  Athens.  Anaxa^oras  of  Ionia, 
the  friend  of  Pericles,  taught  that  the  ruling  principle  was 
Mind^ :  "In  the  beginning,  all  things  were  chaos;  then  came 
Intelligence,  and  set  all  in  order."  He  also  attempted  rational 
explanations  of  strange  natural  phenomena,  which  had  been 
regarded  as  miraculous. 

But  Anaxagoras,  like  Democritus  and  Empedocles  of  the  same 
period,  turned  in  the  main  from  the  old  problem  of  a  funda- 
mental principle  to  a  new  problem  —  how  man  knows  the  uni- 
verse. Their  early  attempts  at  explanation  were  not  very 
satisfactory,  and  so  next  came  the  Sophists,  to  close  one  era  by 
a  skeptical  philosophy.  Man,  they  held,  cannot  reach  truth 
itself,  but  must  be  content  to  know  appearances.  They  taught 
Rhetoric,  and  were  the  first  of  the  philosophers  to  accept  pay 
for  their  services.  Thus  they  were  accused  by  conservative  men 
of  advertising,  for  gain,  to  teach  youth  how  to  make  the  worse 
appear  the  better  reason,  and  the  name  sophist  received  an  evil 
significance ;  but  many  of  them  were  certainly  brilliant  thinkers, 
who  did  much  to  clear  away  old  mental  rubbish.  The  most 
famous  were  Gorgias,  the  rhetorician,  a  Sicilian  Greek  at  Athens, 
and  his  pupil,  Isocrates,  whose  essays  and  orations  represent 
the  most  famous  Greek  prose,  and  were  the  models  on  which 
Cicero  trained  himself — to  influence  all  later  prose. 

Socrates,  the  founder  of  a  new  philosophy,  is  sometimes  con- 
founded with  these  sophists.  Like  them,  he  abandoned  the 
attempt  to  understand  the  material  universe,  and  ridiculed  gently 

1  Review  his  chief  predecessors,  §  142. 


§207]  INTELLECTUAL  AND  ARTISTIC   ATHENS.  187 

the  explanations  of  Anaxagoras ;  but  lie  took  for  his  motto, 
"  know  thyself,"  and  considered  philosophy  to  consist  in  right- 
thinking  upon  human  conduct.  Socrates  was  a  poor  man,  an 
artisan-sculptor  who  neglected  his  trade  to  talk  in  the  market 
place.  He  wore  no  sandals  and  dressed  meanly ;  and  his  large, 
bald  head  and  ugly  face,  with  its  thick  lips  and  flat  nose,  made 
him  good  sport  for  the  comic  poets.  His  practice  was  to  entrap 
unwary  antagonists  into  public  conversation  by  innocent-look- 
ing questions,  and  then,  by  the  inconsistencies  of  their  answers, 
to  show  up  the  shallowness  of  their  conventional  opinions. 
This  of  course  afforded  huge  merriment  to  the  crowd  of  youths 
who  followed  him,  and  it  raised  him  bitter  enemies  among  his 
victims ;  but  his  method  of  conversation  was  a  permanent  addi- 
tion to  our  intellectual  weapons,  and  his  beauty  of  soul,  his 
devotion  to  knowledge,  and  his  largeness  of  spirit  make  him 
the  greatest  name  in  Greek  history.  Late  in  life  (399  b.c.)  he 
was  accused  of  impiety  and  of  corrupting  the  youth,  and  was 
condemned  to  death  by  the  dicasts  on  a  close  vote,  mainly 
because  he  would  not  condescend  to  defend  himself  in  any 
ordinary  way.  He  refused  to  escape  from  prison,  and  after 
memorable  conversations  with  his  friends  upon  immortality, 
he  drank  the  fatal  hemlock  with  a  gentle  jest  upon  his  lips. 
His  execution  is  the  greatest  blot  upon  the  intelligence  of  the 
Athenian  democracy;  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  that  body 
was  keenly  religious  and  jealous  of  attacks  upon  its  deities.^ 
Socrates'  disciple,  Plato,  pictures  him  for  us  in  his  Dialogues, 
but  rather,  perhaps,  as  the  mouthpiece  of  Plato  than  as  the  real 
Socrates.     Xenophon's  Memorabilia  is  a  truer  portrait. 

Plato  (the  "  broad-browed  "),  with  his  great  pupil  and  rival 
Aristotle,  belongs  really  to  the  following  period  of  history,  but 
may  be  best  treated  at  this  point.  Plato  taught  that  ideas  are 
the  only  real  things,  eternal  and  unchangeable ;  the  phenomena 
of  this  world  are  only  shadows  of  the  ideas,  which  exist  in 
heaven.     He  was  much  influenced  by  the  Pythagoreans,  and 

1  On  the  Greek  religious  feeling  in  the  Age  of  Pericles  and  later,  see  Mahaffy, 
Social  Life,  348-3M. 


188 


THE  ATHENIAN  EMPIRE  IN  PEACE. 


[§208 


his  philosophy  is  shot  through  with  noble  poetic  imagination. 
His  pupil  Aristotle  (born  at  Stagira  in  Macedonia)  established 
a  systematic  body  of  philosophy  that  dominated  the  world 
until  very  modern  times.  His  work  was  too  many-sided  to  be 
summed  up  in  any  brief  phrase.  Besides  his  philosophical 
treatises  he  wrote  upon  rhetoric,  logic,  poetry,  politics,  and 
physics.  He  is  by  far  the  most  modern  in  spirit  of  all  the 
Greek  philosophers. 


208.  Education. — Education  at  Athens  typifies  that  of  Ionian 
Greece.     It   aimed   to   train    harmoniously  the   intellect,  the 

sense  of  beauty, 
the  moral  nature, 
and  the  body.  At 
the  age  of  seven 
the  boy  entered 
school,  but  he  was 
constantly  under 
the  eye  not  only 
of  the  teacher,  but 
of  a  trusted  ser- 
vant of  his  own 
family,  called  a 
pedagogue.  In- 
deed, no  other 
people  have  ever 
been  so  solicitous 
to  preserve  their 
boys  and  youth 
from  evil  and  con- 
tamination ;  and 
Professor  Mahaffy 
thinks  that  Greek 
boys  retained  a 
delicacy  of  thought  and  feeling  found  among  no  other  people. 
The  chief  instruments  of  instruction  were  Homer  and  music. 


The  Wrestlers. 


208] 


INTELLECTUAL   AND  ARTISTIC   ATHENS. 


189 


Homer,  it  has  well  been  said,  was  to  the  Greek  at  once  Bible, 
Shakespeare,  and  Eobinson  Crusoe. 

When  the  youth  left  school  it  was  but  to  enter  on  a  wider 
training  of  a  like  kind  —  in  the  Assembly,  in  the  lecture  halls 
of  the  rhetoricians  and  sophists,  in  the  countless  festivals  and 
religious  processions  and  dramatic  representations  of  his  city, 
and  in  the  constant  en- 
joyment of  the  noblest 
and  purest  works  of  art. 

Physical  training^  be- 
gan with  the  child  and 
continued  through  old 
age.  No  Greek  youth 
would  pass  a  day  with- 
out devoting  some  hours 
to  the  development  of 
his  body  and  to  over- 
coming any  physical 
defect  or  awkwardness. 
All  classes  of  citizens, 
except  those  bound  by 
necessity  to  the  work- 
shop, met  for  exercise. 
The  result  was  a  perfec- 
tion of  physical  power 
and  beauty  never  at- 
tained so  universally 
by  any  other  people. 
Indeed  it  was  from  this 

perfection  of  the  body,  and  from  the  unrivaled  opportunity  to 
study  it  constantly  in  all  the  exercises  of  the  gymnasium,  that 
the  surpassing  excellence  of  Greek  sculpture  came.  Says 
Symonds :  "  The  whole  race  rehearsed  the  great  works  of 
Pheidias  and  Polygnotus  in  physical  exercises,  before  it  learned 
to  express  itself  in  marble  or  in  color." 


The  Disk  Thrower. 


After   Myron, 
in  the  Vatican. 


Now 


1  Read  Gardner,  Ifew  Chapters,  266-270. 


190  THE  ATHENIAN  EMPIRE   IN  PEACE.  [§209 

209.  Summary:  Extent  and  Degree  of  Culture.^ — The  amaz- 
ing extent  and  degree  of  Athenian  culture  overpower  the 
imagination.  With  the  few  exceptions  indicated,  the  famous 
men  mentioned  in  the  paragraphs  above  were  all  Athenian  cit- 
izens. That  one  city  with  its  small  free  population  gave  birth 
to  more  famous  men  of  the  first  rank  in  this  one  century,  it 
has  been  said,  than  all  the  world  has  ever  produced  in  any 
other  equal  period  of  time.  Others  swarmed  to  the  same 
center  from  less  favored  parts  of  Hellas ;  for,  despite  the  con- 
demnation of  Socrates  and  some  other  such  crimes,  it  remains 
true  that  no  other  city  in  the  world  afforded  such  freedom  of 
thought,  and  that  nowhere  else  was  artistic  merit  so  appreci- 
ated. The  lists  of  names  that  have  been  mentioned  give  but  a 
faint  impression  of  the  splendid  throngs  of  brilliant  poets, 
artists,  philosophers,  and  orators,  who  jostled  each  other  in  the 
streets  of  Athens.  This,  after  all,  is  the  final  justification  of 
the  Athenian  democracy ;  and  Abbott  {History,  II.  415),  one  of 
its  sternest  modern  critics,  is  forced  to  exclaim,  "  Never  before 
or  since  has  life  developed  so  richly  as  it  developed  in  the 
beautiful  city  which  lay  at  the  feet  of  the  virgin  goddess." 

The  finest  glorification  of  the  Athenian  spirit  as  a  whole  is 
contained  in  the  great  funeral  oration  delivered  by  Pericles 
over  the  fallen  Athenians  at  the  close  of  the  second  year  of  the 
Peloponnesian  War.  Thucydides  gives  the  speech  and  repre- 
sents no  dou.bt  the  ideas,  if  not  the  words,  of  the  orator :  — 

"And  we  have  not  forgotten  to  provide  for  our  weary  spirits  many  re- 
laxations  from  toil ;  we  have  our  regular  games  and  sacrifices  throughout 
the  year ;  at  home  the  style  of  our  life  is  refined,  and  the  delight  which 
we  daily  feel  in  all  these  things  helps  to  banish  melancholy.  Because  of 
the  greatness  of  our  city,  the  fruits  of  the  whole  earth  flow  in  upon  us ; 
so  that  we  enjoy  the  goods  of  other  countries  as  freely  as  of  our  own.  .  .  . 

"And  in  the  matter  of  education,  whereas  our  adversaries  from  early 
youth  are  always  undergoing  laborious  exercises  which  are  to  make  them 
brave,  we  live  at  ease,  and  yet  are  equally  ready  to  face  the  perils  which 
they  face.  .  .  . 

iHolm,  1. 1-4;  Mahaffy,  Social  Life. 


§210]  INTELLECTUAL  AND  ARTISTIC  ATHENS.  191 

"If  then  we  prefer  to  meet  danger  with  a  light  heart  but  without  labo- 
rious training,  and  with  a  courage  which  is  gained  by  habit  and  not  en- 
forced by  law,  are  we  not  greatly  the  gainers  ? 

"  We  are  lovers  of  the  beautiful,  yet  simple  in  our  tastes,  and  we  cul- 
tivate the  mind  without  loss  of  manliness.  Wealth  we  employ,  not  for 
talk  and  ostentation,  but  when  there  is  a  real  use  for  it.  To  avow  poverty 
with  us  is  no  disgrace ;  the  true  disgrace  is  in  doing  nothing  to  avoid  it. 
An  Athenian  citizen  does  not  neglect  the  state  because  he  takes  care  of 
his  own  household ;  and  even  those  of  us  who  are  engaged  in  business 
have  a  very  fair  idea  of  politics.  We  alone  regard  a  man  who  takes  no 
interest  in  public  affairs,  not  as  a  harmless,  but  as  a  useless  character.  .  .  . 

"In  the  hour  of  trial  Athens  alone  is  superior  to  the  report  of  her. 
No  enemy  who  comes  against  her  is  indignant  at  the  reverses  which  he 
sustains  at  the  hands  of  such  a  city  ;  no  subject  complains  that  his  mas- 
ters are  unworthy  of  him.  And  we  shall  assuredly  not  be  without  wit- 
nesses ;  there  are  mighty  monuments  of  our  power  which  will  make  us 
the  wonder  of  this  and  of  succeeding  ages.  .  .  .  For  we  have  compelled 
every  land  and  every  sea  to  open  a  path  for  our  valor,  and  have  every- 
where planted  eternal  memorials  of  our  friendship  and  of  our  enmity.  .  .  . 

"To  sum  up  :  I  say  that  Athens  is  the  school  of  Hellas,  and  that  the 
individual  Athenian  in  his  own  person  seems  to  have  the  power  of  adapt- 
ing himself  to  the  most  varied  forms  of  action  with  the  utmost  versatility 
-and  grace.  .  .  . 

"  I  would  have  you  day  by  day  fix  your  eyes  upon  the  greatness  of 
Athens,  until  you  become  filled  with  the  love  of  her  ;  and  when  you  are 
impressed  by  the  spectacle  of  her  glory,  reflect  that  this  empire  has  been 
acquired  by  men  who  knew  their  duty  and  had  the  courage  to  do  it,  and 
who  in  the  hour  of  conflict  had  the  fear  of  dishonor  always  present  to 
them.  .  .  . 

"For  the  whole  earth  is  a  sepulcher  of  famous  men  ;  not  only  are  they 
commemorated  by  columns  and  inscriptions  in  their  own  country,  but  in 
foreign  lands  there  dwells  also  an  unwritten  memorial  of  them,  graven 
not  on  stone  but  in  the  hearts  of  men.  Make  them  your  examples,  and, 
esteeming  courage  to  be  freedom  and  freedom  to  be  happiness,  do  not 
weigh  too  nicely  the  perils  of  war.  ..." 

210.  Summary:  Limitations.  —  At  the  same  time  two  limi- 
tations in  Greek  culture  must  be  noted. 

a.  It  rested  necessarily  on  slavery  and  consequently  could  not 
honor  labor,  as  modern  culture  at  least  tries  to  do.  It  was 
militant  rather  than  industrial.     Trades  and  commerce  were 


192  THE  PELOPONNESIAN  WAR.  [§211 

left  largely  to  the  free  non-citizen  class,  and  actual  manual 
labor  was  performed  mainly  by  slaves.  As  a  rule,  it  is  true, 
this  slavery  was  not  harsh.  In  Athens,  in  particular,  the 
slaves  were  ordinarily  hardly  to  be  distinguished  from  the 
poorer  citizens,  and  indeed  they  were  better  treated  than  were 
poor  citizens  in  many  oligarchic  states ;  but  there  was  always 
the  possibility  of  cruelty  and  of  judicial  torture,  and  in  the 
mines,  even  in  Attica,  the  slaves  were  killed  off  brutally  by  the 
merciless  hardships  to  which  they  were  subjected. 

h.  Greek  culture  was  for  males  only.  It  is  not  probable  that 
the  wife  of  Pheidias  or  of  Thucydides  could  read.  Women 
had  lost  the  freedom  of  the  semi-barbaric  society  of  Homer's 
time,  without  gaining  much  in  return.  Except  at  Sparta, 
where  physical  training  was  thought  needful  for  them,  they 
passed  a  secluded  life  in  separate  women's  apartments,  with 
no  public  interests,  appearing  rarely  on  the  streets.  At  best 
they  were  only  higher  domestic  servants.  The  chivalry  of 
the  medieval  knight  toward  woman  and  the  love  of  the  modern 
gentleman  for  his  wife  were  equally  unthinkable  by  the  finest 
Greek  society  of  this  age. 

A  rare  exception  proves  the  rule.  No  account  of  the  Athens  of  Pericles 
should  omit  mention  of  Aspasia.  She  was  a  native  of  Miletus,  loved  by 
Pericles.  Since  she  was  not  an  Athenian  citizen  he  could  not  marry  her ; 
but  he  lived  with  her  in  all  respects  as  his  wife,  a  union  not  grievously 
offensive  to  Greek  ideas  ;  and  her  dazzling  wit  and  beauty  made  his  home 
the  focus  of  the  intellectual  life  of  Athens.  Anaxagoras,  Socrates,  Phei- 
dias, delighted  in  her  conversation,  and  she  has  sometimes  been  credited 
with  inspiring  the  policy  of  Pericles  himself  ;  but  she  is  the  only  woman  who 
need  be  named  in  Greek  history  after  the  time  of  Sappho  and  Corinna.^ 

\  III.    THE  PELOPONNESIAN   WAR. 

211.  Causes.  —  The  Thirty  Years'  Truce  between  Athens  and 
Sparta  ran  only  half  its  length.  The  immediate  occasion  for 
the  renewal  of  the  conflict  was  some  assistance  that  the  Athe- 

1  The  student  with  a  taste  for  a  noble  book  should  read  Landor's  Pericles 
and  Aspasia. 


§213]  RESOURCES  AND  PLANS.  193 

nians  gave  Corcyra  against  Corinth  in  432  b.c,  but  the  real 
causes  lay  in  natural  antagonism  of  character  and  in  a  standing 
conflict  of  interests.  Sparta  began  to  pose  as  the  champion  of 
a  free  Hellas,  and  finally  sent  an  ultimatum:  Athens  must 
let  all  the  Greek  cities  go  free ;  that  is,  abandon  her  empire. 
Athens  replied  that  Sparta  might  first  set  free  Messenia  and 
the  Perioeci  towns  of  Laconia ;  and  the  war  began. 

212.  Resources  and  Plans.  —  The  Peloponnesian  League  with 
its  allies  could  master  a  hundred  thousand  hoplites,  against 
whom  in  that  day  no  army  in  the  world  could  stand ;  but  it 
could  not  keep  in  the  field  any  considerable  fraction  of  that 
force  longer  than  a  few  weeks.  Sparta  could  not  capture  Ath- 
ens, therefore,  and  must  depend  upon  ravaging  Attic  territory 
and  inducing  Athenian  allies  to  revolt.  Athens  had  only  some 
twenty-six  thousand  hoplites  at  her  command,  half  of  whom 
were  needed  for  distant  garrison  duty  ;  but  she  had  a  navy 
even  more  unmatched  on  the  sea  than  the  Peloponnesian  army 
was  on  land ;  her  walls  were  impregnable  ;  the  islands  of  Euboea 
and  Salamis,  and  the  open  spaces  within  the  Long  Walls,  could 
receive  her  country  people  with  their  flocks  and  herds;  the 
corn  trade  of  south  Kussia  was  securely  in  her  hands,  the  grain 
ships  entering  the  Peiraeus  as  usual,  however  the  Spartans 
might  hold  the  open  country  of  Attica ;  and  Athens  could  eas- 
ily afford  to  support  her  population  for  a  time  from  her  annual 
revenues,  to  say  nothing  of  the  immense  surplus  of  six  thoU-' 
sand  talents  in  the  treasury.  Under  these  conditions  Pericles 
refused  to  meet  the  Spartans  in  battle,  and  confined  himself  to 
ravaging  the  Peloponnesian  coasts  with  his  navy.  Neither 
party  could  get  at  the  other.  The  war  promised  to  be  a  matter 
of  patience  and  endurance. 

213.  An  Unforeseen  Factor.  —  Pericles  died  in  the  third  year  of 
the  war,  but  his  plan  apparently  would  have  worked  well  except 
for  a  tragic  fatality  that  had  already  fallen  upon  Athens.  A 
terrible  plague  had  been  ravaging  Asia,  and,  just  at  this  time, 
reached  the  Aegean.     In  general,  in  Greece  it  did  little  harm ; 


194  THE  PELOPONNESIAN  WAR.  [§214 

but  in  Athens  —  the  streets  overcrowded  with  the  population 
of  all  Attica  living  in  unusual  and  unsanitary  conditions  —  the 
pestilence  returned  each  summer  for  some  years  and  was  deadly 
beyond  description.  It  is  estimated  that  a  fourth  of  the  popu- 
lation was  swept  away,  and  the  demoralization  of  society  was 
even  more  fataJ.^ 

214.  Summary  of  Events  and  Traits.  —  Still,  Athens  recovered 
her  buoyant  hope,  and  the  war  lasted  from  431  to  404  b.c, 
with  one  short  and  ill-kept  truce.  The  notable  matters  for 
special  reports  or  for  further  study  are :  — 

(1)  Athenian  superiority  in  naval  tactics  —  the  easy  equality  of  an 
Athenian  squadron  in  the  early  years  to  triple  its  numbers  (illustrated  by 
Phormio's  engagements  in  the  Corinthian  gulf). 

(2)  Massacres  of  prisoners:  Thebans  by  Plataeans, 431  b.c.  ;  Plataeans 
by  Thebans,  427  b.c.  ;  Mytilenaean  oligarchs  by  Athens  (the  story  of  the 
decree  and  the  reprieve)  ;  the  Melians  by  Athens,  415  b.c.  ;  thousands  of 
Athenians  in  the  mines  of  Syracuse  ;  the  four  thousand  Athenians  by 
Sparta  after  Aegospotami. 

(3)  The  condemnation  of  the  Athenian  generals  after  the  victoiy  of 
Arginusae. 

q4)  Cleon's  leadership  at  Athens. 

(5)  The  surrender  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  Spartans  at  Sphacteria. 

(6)  The  war  in  Thrace. 

(7)  The  "Peace  of  Nicias." 

(8)  Alcibiades. 

(9)  The  Syracusan  expedition  —  Nicias. 

215.  The  Closing  Years :  Rule  of  the  Four  Hundred;  Persian  Gold. 

—  The  turning-point  in  the  war  was  the  unwise  and  miscon- 
ducted Athenian  expedition  against  Syracuse.  Two  hundred 
perfectly  equipped  ships  and  over  forty  thousand  men  —  among 
them  eleven  thousand  of  the  flower  of  the  Athenian  hoplites  — 
were  pitifully  sacrificed  by  the  superstition  and  miserable  gen- 
eralship of  their  leader,  the  good  but  stupid  Nicias  (413  b.c). 
Even  after  this  crushing  disaster  Athens  refused  peace  that 
should  limit  her  empire.  Every  nerve  was  strained,  and  the 
last  resources  and  reserve  funds  exhausted  to  build  and  man 

^  Read  the  account  in  Thucydides. 


§216]  '  THE  CLOSING  YEARS.  195 

new  fleets.  Indeed,  the  war  lasted  nine  years  more,  and  part 
of  the  time  Athens  seemed  as  supreme  in  the  Aegean  as  ever. 
Two  things  are  notable  in  the  closing  chapters  of  the  struggle 
—  the  attempt  at  political  reaction  in  Athens,  and  the  be- 
trayal of  the  Asiatic  Greeks  to  Persia  by  Sparta. 

a.  In  411  B.C.,  after  a  century  of  quiet,  the  oligarchs  tried  to 
secure  the  government.  Wealthy  men  of  moderate  opinion 
were  wearied  by  the  ruinous  taxation  of  the  war.  The  democ- 
racy had  blundered  sadly  and  had  shown  its  unfitness  for  deal- 
ing with  foreign  relations,  where  secrecy  and  dispatch  are  so 
essential ;  and  at  home  it  had  fallen  under  the  control  of  a  new 
class  of  leaders  —  men  of  the  people,  like  Cleon  the  tanner, 
and  Hyperholus  the  lampmaker,  men  of  strong  will  and  of  abil- 
ity, but  rude,  unscrupulous,  and  demagogic.  Under  these  condi- 
tions the  officers  of  the  fleet  conspired  with  the  oligarchic  secret 
societies  at  home  and  terrorized  the  city  by  the  assassination 
of  leading  democrats.  The  Assembly  was  induced  to  pass  a 
decree  for  a  new  constitution.  Five  of  the  conspirators  chose 
ninety-five  others,  and  each  of  the  hundred  added  three  more, 
making  a  council  of  Four  Hundred.  This  body  was  to  govern 
the  city  and  appoint  all  magistrates.  It  was  pledged  to  create 
an  Assembly  of  the  five  thousand  wealthier  citizens.  This  step 
the  oligarchs  hesitated  to  take.  Meantime,  they  betrayed 
Athenian  interests  to  Sparta,  and  proved  generally  incom- 
petent, except  in  murder  and  plunder.  After  a  few  months, 
the  Athenian  fleet  at  Samos  revolted  and  deposed  its  oligarchic 
officers ;  then  the  democracy  at  home  expelled  the  Four  Hun- 
dred and  restored  the  old  constitution. 

6.  In  412  B.C.,  immediately  after  the  destruction  of  the 
Athenian  army  and  fleet  in  Sicily,  Persian  satraps  appeared 
again  upon  the  Aegean  coast,  and  Sparta  bought  the  aid  of  their 
gold  by  promising  to  betray  the  freedom  of  the  Asiatic  Greeks,  to 
whom  the  Athenian  name  had  been  a  shield  for  seventy  years. 

216.  Aegospotami :  the  Surrender. — Persian  funds  now  built 
fleet  after  fleet  for  Sparta,  and  slowly  Athens  was  exhausted, 


196  THE   WESTERN   GREEKS.  [§217 

despite  some  brilliant  victories.  In  405  b.c.  her  last  fleet,  dis- 
couraged and  demoralized  and  possibly  betrayed  by  its  com- 
manders, was  surprised  and  routed  at  Aegospotami.  Lysander, 
the  Spartan  commander,  executed  in  cold  blood  the  four  thou- 
sand Athenian  citizens  among  the  prisoners. 

Athens  still  held  out  through  a  terrible  siege,  until  it  was 
starved  into  submission  in  404  b.c.  Corinth  and  Thebes  wished 
to  raze  it  to  the  earth ;  but  Sparta  had  no  mind  to  remove  so 
useful  a  check  upon  Thebes,  and  was  content  with  gentler 
terms.  Athens  renounced  her  empire  and  all  her  old  alliances, 
surrendered  all  her  ships  but  twelve,  and  bound  herself  to  fol- 
low Sparta  in  peace  and  war.  Then  the  Long  Walls  and  the 
fortifications  of  the  Peiraeus  were  demolished,  to  the  music  of 
Peloponnesian  flutes,  and  Hellas  was  declared  free.  In  reality 
it  remained  only  to  see  to  what  master  Hellas  would  fall. 

IV.    THE   WESTERN  GREEKS   IN  THE    FIFTH    AND   FOURTH 
CENTURIES. 

217.  A  Brief  Sketch  of  Events  in  Magna  Graecia  ought  to  be 
included  in  this  portion  of  Greek  history.  The  tyrant  Gelon 
and  his  brother  and  successor  Hiero  for  a  few  years  after  the 
repulse  of  Carthage  (480  b.c.)  made  Syracuse  the  most  power- 
ful city  in  the  West ;  indeed,  for  a  short  time  just  before  the 
full  bloom  of  Athens,  it  was  the  center  of  Greek  civilization 
and  the  most  brilliant  city  in  the  world.  Between  475  and 
450  B.C.  the  tyrants  gave  way  to  democracies  in  Magna  Graecia; 
but  the  old  political  union  of  the  cities  was  lost,  and  petty  wars 
and  incessant  strife  of  faction  blasted  the  rising  culture. 

It  was  these  dissensions  and  the  wars  between  lonians  and 
Dorians  in  Sicily  that  called  in  Athens  (415-413  b.c),  to  her 
own  ruin,  during  the  Peloponnesian  War.  Then,  in  409  b.c, 
like  Persia  in  the  East,  Carthage  renewed  her  designs,  and 
quickly  overran  all  the  island  except  Syracuse,  which  was 
saved  by  a  new  tyrant,  Dionysius.  This  remarkable  ruler  built 
up  a  great  military  power,  and  in  a  long  war  won  back  much 


§  217]  FIFTH  AND   FOURTH  CENTURIES.  197 

of  the  island,  setting  up  dependent  tyrants  in  the  various 
cities,  after  the  fashion  of  Gelo  before  him.  Thus  the  prize  of 
Sicily  hung  between  Greek  and  Carthaginian  for  a  century 
more,  until  it  was  finally  seized  by  Rome  (§§  359-362).  The 
only  episode  worthy  of  attention  here  was  the  career  of  Timo- 
leon  the  Liberator^  (344-336  B.C.),  a  Corinthian  hero,  who  for 
a  brief  period  drove  out  the  tyrants,  preserved  order,  and 
checked  the  barbarians.  Soon  after  his  death  the  noted  Agath- 
ocles  restored  the  rule  of  tyrants,  which  lasted  until  Eome 
became  mistress. 


For  Further  Reading. — Sources:  (1)  The  interesting  period,  479- 
431  B.C.,  is  singularly  lacking  in  authorities,  because  of  the  loss  of  ancient 
manuscripts.  Almost  the  only  approach  to  a  contemporary  narrative  is 
the  brief  account  with  which  Thucydides  prefaces  his  history  of  the  war. 
Plutarch,  however,  had  access  to  many  sources  since  lost,  and  therefore 
his  Lives  for  this  period  (^Themistocles,  Aristeides,  Pericles)  have  the 
character  of  a  source  to  us.  The  same  is  true  of  Aristotle's  Constitution 
of  Athens.  (2)  For  the  war,  Thucydides  is  the  great  authority  ;  he  was 
an  Athenian  general,  and  he  was  banished  because  his  carelessness  per- 
mitted a  serious  loss  in  Thrace,  but  we  have  no  reason  to  think  him 
unfair,  unless  it  be  toward  his  accuser,  Cleon.  Xenophon,  in  his  Hel- 
lenica,  takes  up  the  story  of  the  latter  part  of  the  war.  Plutarch's  Alci- 
biades  and  Nicias  are  useful  for  the  same  period. 

Modern  authorities  for  the  whole  period,  479-404  b.c.  :  Cox's  Athenian 
Empire  ;  Grant's  Greece  in  the  Age  of  Pericles  ;  Abbott's  Pericles  ;  Cox's 
Oreek  Statesmen;  Lloyd's  Age  of  Pericles ;  and  the  Histories  of  Holm, 
Grote,  Abbott,  and  Curtius. 

For  art  and  culture:  Mahaffy's  Survey  and  Social  Life;  Murray; 
Jebb  ;  Tarbell ;  Marshall  ;  and  the  works  of  the  Greek  dramatists  and 
philosophers  themselves. 

For  the  Western  Greeks :  Plutarch's  Timoleon  and  Dion  and  Freeman's 
Story  of  Sicily. 

Special  Reports  (see  suggestions  also  in  §§  179, 181,  200,  214, 217) :  — 
1.  Trial  and  death  of  Socrates  (Plato's  Apology;  Xenophon's  Memo- 
rabilia; Curtius,  IV.  148-164). 

1  Special  reports :  (1)  Timoleon ;  (2)  the  parallels  between  the  fate  of  east 
and  west  Hellas  in  the  fifth  and  fourth  centuries  (see  Holm,  U.  524). 


198  THE   WESTERN  GREEKS.  [§217 

2.  Attacks  upon  the  friends  of  Pericles  just  before  the  Peloponnesian 
War. 

3.  The  attempts  to  remodel  Greece  :  (a)  by  Sparta  just  after  the  Per- 
sian War,  through  the  Amphictyonic  League ;  and  (6)  by  Athens  later, 
through  the  creation  of  a  new  religious  league  (Holm,  II.  237-239). 

4.  Agathocles'  invasion  of  Africa  in  war  with  Carthage. 

Imaginative  Exercises. — This  period  affords  excellent  material  for 
exercises  based  upon  the  training  of  the  historic  imagination.  Let  the 
student  absorb  all  the  information  he  can  Bnd  upon  some  historic  subject 
until  he  is  infused  with  its  spirit,  and  then  reproduce  it  from  the  inside^ 
with  the  dramatic  spirit  —  as  an  actor  in  that  time,  not  in  the  descriptive 
method  of  another  age.  The  following  topics  are  suggested  (the  list  can 
be  indefinitely  extended,  and  such  exercises  may  be  arranged  for  any  pe- 
riod where  an  approach  is  made  to  exhaustive  study)  :  — 

1.  A  captive  Persian's  letter  to  a  friend  after  Plataea. 

2.  A  dialogue  between  Socrates  and  Xanthippe. 

3.  An  address  by  a  revolted  Helot  at  Ithomg  to  his  compatriots. 

4.  Extracts  from  a  diary  of  Pericles. 

6.   A  day  at  the  Olympic  games  (choose  some  particular  date). 


CHAPTER  VI. 

FROM  THE  PALL  OF  ATHENS  TO  THE  FALL  OP 
HELLAS.  404-338  B.C. 

218.  Decline  of  the  City  State — At  Aegospotami  the  hrilliant  politi- 
cal work  of  Athens  was  undone.  Persia  and  Carthage  had  already  begun 
again  to  enslave  the  Sicilian  and  Asiatic  Greeks :  and  in  the  European 
peninsula  the  power  which  so  long  had  kept  these  barbarians  in  check 
was  crushed. 

The  Athenian  Empire  had  lasted  seventy  glorious  years.  Nearly  an 
equal  time  was  yet  to  elapse  before  Hellas  fell  under  Macedonian  sway  ; 
but  this  period  is  one  of  shame  or  of  profitless  conflict,  and  it  need  not 
detain  us  long.  It  falls  into  three  divisions  —  the  brutal  terrorism  of 
Sparta,  the  hopeless  anarchy  under  Thebes,  and  the  subtle  encroachments 
of  the  northern  monarchy.  In  the  whole  period,  the  city  state  is  declin- 
ing, —  to  give  way  to  the  system  of  great  monarchies.  Neither  Thebes  nor 
Sparta  make  any  contributions  toward  the  accomplishment  of  Hellenic 
unity. 

I.     THE   SPARTAN  SUPREMACY. 

A.   Character  in  General. 

219.  Harmosts  and  Decarchies.  — For  thirty  years  Sparta  was 
to  be  physical  mistress  of  Greece  more  completely  than 
ever  Athens  was ;  and  had  she  been  capable  of  enlightened 
leadership,  this  opportunity  would  have  been  the  fairest  of  all 
to  make  a  single  Greek  state.  But  the  cities  of  the  old  Athe- 
nian Empire  found  that  they  had  exchanged  a  wise,  mild  rule  for 
a  coarse  and  stupid  despotism.  Their  old  tribute  was  doubled ; 
a  Spartan  harmost  (military  governor),  supported  by  a  garri- 
son, held  supreme  authority  in  each  city ;  ^  and  such  local  con- 

1  For  a  comparison  of  Athenian  and  Spartan  rule,  read  Cox,  Athenian 
Empire,  229-231.  Under  Athens,  garrisons  in  subject  cities  had  been  rare 
exceptions. 

199 


200  FALL  OF  ATHENS  TO  FALL  OF   HELLAS.         [§220 

trol  as  was  left  to  the  citizens  was  everywhere  taken  from  the 
old  democracies  and  given  to  boards  of  oligarchs  —  commonly- 
made  up  of  ten  persons  each,  and  so  called  decarchies.  The 
garrisons  plundered  at  will ;  the  harmosts  grew  rich  from  ex- 
tortion and  bribes ;  the  decarchies  were  slavishly  subservient 
to  their  masters  and  protectors,  the  harmosts,  while  they 
wreaked  a  long  pent-up  vengeance  upon  their  fellow-citizens  in 
confiscation,  outrage,  expulsion,  assassination,  and  massacre. 
With  regard  to  these  decarchies,  an  Athenian  exclaimed,  just 
after  their  overthrow :  — 

'*  What  form  of  oppression  escaped  them  ?  Or  what  deed  of  shame  or 
cruelty  did  they  not  perpetrate  ?  They  found  ■  their  friends  among  the 
most  lawless ;  they  considered  traitors  as  benefactors ;  they  chose  to 
be  themselves  slaves  to  Helots  [the  harmosts  were  often  of  low  birth] 
that  they  might  be  supported  while  they  outraged  their  country."  — 
IsocRATES,  IV.  iii. 

220.  A  Famous  Example :  the  "  Thirty  Tyrants  *'  at  Athens.  — 
Por  a  brief  time  Athens  itself  suffered  from  this  form  of  Spar- 
tan rule.  Lysander  had  appointed  a  committee  of  thirty  from 
the  oligarchic  clubs  of  Athens  to  "  reestablish  the  constitution 
of  the  fathers  " ;  meantime  they  were  to  exercise  dictatorial 
power.  Their  guiding  genius  was  Critias,  a  brilliant  and  un- 
scrupulous pupil  of  Socrates.  The  more  cautious  members 
rallied  around  Theramenes,  a  shifty  politician  who  had  played 
many  parts.  The  Thirty  filled  all  offices  with  their  followers, 
and  plotted  to  establish  their  rule  permanently.  They  installed 
in  the  Acropolis  a  Spartan  harmost  and  garrison,  disarmed  the 
citizens,  except  some  three  thousand  of  their  own  adherents, 
and  began  against  wealthy  democrats  and  metics  a  career  of 
bloody  proscription  and  greedy  confiscation.  The  victims 
were  counted  by  hundreds — perhaps  by  thousands.  Larger 
numbers  fled,  and,  despite  the  orders  of  Sparta,  were  sheltered 
by  Thebes.  The  more  conservative  faction  of  the  Thirty  tried 
to  check  the  wholesale  butchery,  only  to  become  themselves 
the  victims  of  the  extremists.  Theramenes  was  seized  and 
sent  to  immediate  execution.     He  seems  to  have  expected  his 


§221]  THE   SPARTAN  SUPREMACY.  201 

fall  to  drag  down  his  opponents,  and  as  he  drank  the  hemlock 
he  poured  out  the  dregs  with  the  mocking  salutation,  '^  Here's 
to  the  gentle  Critias."  But  Critias  had  crushed  all  opposition 
within  the  city,  and  he  relied  upon  Lysander  to  protect  him 
from  without. 

Finally,  however,  in  403  b.c,  after  something  over  a  year  of 
this  reign  of  terror,  one  of  the  democratic  exiles,  ThrasyhuluSj 
with  a  band  of  companions  from  Thebes,  seized  the  Peiraeus. 
The  men  of  the  Port  rose  to  his  support.  The  Lacedaemonian 
garrison  and  the  forces  of  the  Thirty  were  defeated ;  a  quarrel 
between  Lysander  and  the  Spartan  king  prevented  serious 
Spartan  interference,  and  the  old  democracy  was  restored. 
Thrasybulus,  one  of  the  most  liberal  of  Greek  statesmen,  urged 
that  the  metics  and  sailors  of  the  Peiraeus,  who  had  fought  thf* 
Thirty,  should  be  incorporated  in  the  State.  Unfortunately » 
this  just  measure,  which  would  have  compensated  Athen"^ 
partly  for  her  terrible  losses  in  the  Peloponnesian  War,  was  not 
adopted ;  but  in  other  respects  the  restored  democracy  showed 
itself  generous  and  self-controlled.  Critias  had  fallen  in  battle. 
A  few  of  the  most  guilty  of  the  Thirty  were  punished,  but  all 
their  adherents  were  admitted  to  a  general  amnesty  —  the  first 
sweeping  measure  of  the  kind  in  history.  The  good  faith  and 
moderation  of  the  democracy  contrasted  so  favorably  with  the 
cutthroat  rule  of  the  two  recent  experiments  at  oligarchy  that 
Athens  was  undisturbed  in  future  by  internal  revolution. 

221.  Spartan  Decay.  —  In  Sparta  itself  a  social  revolution 
had  been  going  on.  Spartan  officials  abroad  had  yielded  to 
corruption  before,  but  now  wealth  and  luxury  replaced  the  old 
simplicity  at  home.  Moreover,  the  number  of  full  citizens  was 
rapidly  decreasing.  Through  the  accumulation  of  property  in 
the  hands  of  a  few  men,  it  came  to  pass  that  many  Spartans 
lost  the  power  to  support  themselves  at  the  public  mess  (§  113), 
and  so  ceased  to  enjoy  political  rights.  The  nine  or  ten  thou- 
sand citizens  of  700  b.c.  shrank  to  two  thousand.  The  result- 
ing class  of  "Inferiors"  added  by  their   discontent  to  the 


202  FALL  OF  ATHENS  TO  FALL   OF   HELLAS.         [§222 

standing  menace  of  the  Helots,  and  a  successful  rising  seems  to 
have  been  averted  only  by  an  accident.^  The  Spartan  Empire 
even  at  home  rested  on  a  volcano. 


B.   Wars  and  Leagues  to  the  Peace  of  Antalcidas. 


The  March  of  the  Ten  Thousand ;  Renewal  of  War  with 
Persia. — In  401  b.c.  the  weakness  of  the  Persian  Empire  was 
made  strikingly  manifest.  Cyrus  the  Younger,  brother  of  the 
king  Artaxerxes,  endeavored  to  seize  the  Persian  throne.  As 
satrap  in  Asia  Minor  he  had  given  Sparta  decisive  help  against 
Athens,  and  now  Sparta  gave  some  countenance  to  his  expedi- 
tion. Through  her  aid,  Cyrus  enlisted  ten  thousand  Greeks  in 
his  army.  He  penetrated  to  the  heart  of  the  empire,  but  in 
the  battle  of  Cunaxa,  near  Babylon,  he  was  killed  and  his 
Asiatic  troops  routed.  The  Ten  Thousand,  however,  proved  un- 
conquerable by  the  Persian  host  of  half  a  million,  but  the  Greek 
leaders  were  entrapped  afterward  by  treachery  and  murdered ; 
still,  under  the  inspiration  of  Xenophon  the  Athenian  (whose 
Anabasis  is  our  history  of  these  events),  the  Ten  Thousand  chose 
new  generals  and  made  good  a  remarkable  retreat  to  the  coast. 
Until  this  time  the  Greeks  had  waged  their  contests  with 
Persia  only  along  the  coasts  of  Asia ;  after  this,  the  dream  of 
conquering  and  Hellenizing  the  continent  became  a  fixed  idea 
in  the  Greek  mind,  and  at  length  Alexander  made  it  fact. 
First,  however,  the  attempt  was  made  by  Agesilaus,  king  of 
Sparta.  Sparta  had  incurred  the  wrath  of  Persia  by  favoring 
Cyrus,  and  Agesilaus  burned  with  a  noble  ambition  to  free  and 
protect  the  Asiatic  Greeks,  who  a  little  before  had  been  aban- 
doned to  Persia  by  his  country.  He  invaded  Asia  Minor  with 
a  large  army,  and  seemed  in  full  career  of  conquest,  when  he 
was  checked  by  the  progress  of  events  in  Hellas. 

223.   A  Greek  League  against  Sparta,  395  B.C. — No  sooner 
was  Sparta  engaged  with  Persia  than  enemies  rose  against  her 

1  Special  topic :  Cinadon's  conspiracy. 


§225]  THE   SPARTAN  SUPREMACY.  203 

in  Greece  itself.  Thebes,  Corinth,  Athens,  and  Argos  leagued 
in  a  struggle  called  the  Corinthian  War.  Persia  supplied  the 
allies  with  funds,  and  the  two  wars  became  intermingled.  The 
contest  turned  upon  two  remarkable  battles :  in  the  first,  an 
Athenian  general  in  Persian  service  shattered  the  maritime 
empire  of  Sparta;  and  in  the  second,  Athens  for  the  first 
time  shook  Spartan  supremacy  on  land. 

224.  Conon  at  Cnidus.  —  Conon  was  the  ablest  of  the  Athe- 
nian generals  in  the  latter  period  of  the  Peloponnesian  War. 
At  Aegospotami  he  was  the  only  one  who  had  kept  his  squad- 
ron in  fighting  order,  and  after  all  was  lost  he  had  escaped 
to  Rhodes  and  entered  Persian  service.  Now,  in  394  e.g.,  in 
command  of  a  Phoenician  fleet,  at  the  battle  of  Cnidus  he 
completely  destroyed  the  Spartan  naval  power.  Spartan  au- 
thority in  the  Aegean  fell  at  once.  Conon  sailed  from  island 
to  island,  expelling  the  Spartan  harmosts  and  garrisons,  and 
restoring  the  democracies ;  and  in  the  next  year  he  anchored 
in  the  Peiraeus  and  riebuilt  the  Long  Walls.  These  events 
raised  Athens  again  to  the  place  of  one  o'f  the  great  powers, 
and  threw  Sparta  back  into  her  old  position  as  head  of  the 
powerful  Peloponnesian  league  only. 

225.  Iphicrates,  and  the  Change  in  Warfare.  —  Shortly  after, 
even  this  position  was  threatened.  The  Athenian  Iphicrates 
introduced  the  first  striking  innovation  in  land  warfare  since 
the  hoplite  overcame  the  chariot  and  the  knights,  five  hundred 
years  before.  His  work  was  to  increase  the  efficiency  of  light- 
armed  mercenaries  so  as  to  make  them  a  match  for  the  citizen 
hoplites.  This  he  did  by  making  their  pikes  and  swords 
heavier  and  longer  (to  do  which  he  lightened  even  their 
former  defensive  armor),  and  by  training  them  to  a  nimble 
dexterity  that  the  hoplite  could  not  imitate.  The  result  was 
seen  in  390  b.c,  when,  with  these  peltasts,  Iphicrates  cut  to 
pieces  a  Spartan  battalion  of  seven  hundred  hoplites  near 
Corinth   (Xenophon^s   Hellenicaj   iv.   5).      The   leadership   of 


204  FALL   OF  ATHENS  TO  FALL  OF  HELLAS.         [§226 

Sparta  had  rested  upon  her  acknowledged  superiority  in  the 
field,  and  now  this  supremacy  was  challenged. 

226.  Peace  of  Antalcidas,  387  B.C. —  Accordingly,  Sparta 
sought  peace  with  Persia.  The  two  powers  invited  all  the 
Greek  states  to  send  deputies  to  Sardis,  where  the  Persian  king 
dictated  the  terms.    The  document  read :  — 

**  King  Artaxerxes  deems  it  just  that  the  cities  in  Asia,  with  the  islands 
of  Clazomenae  and  Cyprus,  should  belong  to  himself ;  the  rest  of  the 
Hellenic  cities,  both  great  and  small,  he  will  leave  independent,  save 
Lemnos,  Imbros,  and  Scyrosj  which  three  are  to  belong  to  Athens  as  of 
yore.  Should  any  of  the  parties  not  accept  this  peace,  I,  Artaxerxes, 
together  with  those  who  share  my  views  [the  Spartans],  will  war  against 
the  offenders  by  land  and  sea."  —  Xenophon,  Hellenica,  v.  1. 

These  terms  were  taken  by  Sparta  to  dissolve  all  the  other 
leagues  (like  the  Boeotian,  of  which  Thebes  was  the  head),  but 
not  to  affect  the  control  of  Sparta  over  her  subject  towns  in 
Laconia,  nor  to  weaken  the  Peloponnesian  confederacy.  Thus 
Persia  and  Sparta  again  conspired  to  betray  the  Greeks.  Per- 
sia would  help  Sparta  keep  the  European  Greek  states  divided 
and  weak,  as  they  were  before  the  Persian  War ;  and  Sparta 
would  help  Persia  recover  her  old  authority  over  the  Asiatic 
Greeks.  By  this  crowning  iniquity  the  tottering  Spartan 
supremacy  was  bolstered  up  a  few  years  longer. 

Of  course  the  shame  of  betraying  the  Asiatic  Greeks  must  be  shared 
by  the  enemies  of  Sparta  who  had  used  Persian  aid  against  her  ;  but 
the  policy  had  been  first  introduced  by  Sparta  in  seeking  Persian  assist- 
ance in  412  against  Athens  (§  215,  6),  and  so  far  no  other  Greek  state 
had  offered  to  surrender  Hellenic  cities  to  barbarians  as  the  price  of  such 
aid. 

C.    Prom  the  Betrayal  of  Hellas  to  Leuctra. 

227.  High-handed  Aggressions.  —  The  power  so  infamously 
recovered  by  Sparta  was  used  with  the  same  brutsll  cunning  as 
in  the  past,  and  with  even  more  arrogant  contempt  for  justice. 
The  Spartan  government  cynically  announced  the  maxim  that 
anything   was    right  which   was  expedient,^   and   avowed  a 


§229]  THE  SPARTAN  SUPREMACY.  205 

policy  of  keeping  down  all  beginnings  of  greatness  in  Greece. 
Arcadia  had  shown  signs  of  growing  strength,  but  the  leading 
city,  Mantinea,  was  now  broken  up  and  the  inhabitants  dis- 
persed in  villages ;  by  treachery  in  time  of  peace  a  Spartan 
force  seized  the  citadel  of  Thebes;  and,  a  little  later,  when 
the  Athenian  naval  power  began  to  revive,  a  like  treacherous, 
though  unsuccessful,  attempt  was  made  upon  the  Peiraeus. 

228.  The  Ruin  of  the  Chalcidic  Confederacy. — These  outrages 
were  all  to  recoil  finally  upon  the  head  of  the  offenders ;  but 
first  there  occurred  an  event,  deplorable  for  Greece.  After  the 
overthrow  of  the  Athenian  power  on  the  north  coast  of  the 
Aegean  in  the  Peloponnesian  War,  Olynthus,  a  leading  Greek  city 
of  the  district,  had  built  up  a  promising  Hellenic  confederacy, 
to  check  the  Thracian  and  Macedonian  barbarians.  From  the 
little  that  we  know  of  this  league,  it  seems  probable  that  a 
definite  advance  in  federal  government  was  made  here.  The 
cities  retained  their  equality  and  separate  independence  in 
local  matters  ;  but  they  were  merged  in  a  large  state  with 
new  bonds  of  union  never  before  seen  in  Greek  leagues.  Tlie 
Qitizens  of  any  city  could  live  and  hold  land  and  intermarry  in 
anyi  other  city  of  the  confederaxiy ;  and  no  one  city  had  superior 
right^or  privileges,  as  Athens  had  had  in  the  Delian  League. 

Th^  forty  states  so  united  made  already  a  formidable  power, 
and  if  left  to  grow,  this  union  might  have  saved  Hellas  from 
Macedonian  conquest,  or  even  have  brought  all  Hellas  into 
union.  Athens  and  Thebes  had  declined  to  join,  however,  and 
now  Sparta  destroyed  the  confederacy,  leaving  the  ground 
cleared  for  the  subsequent  growth  of  Macedon.^ 

229.  The  Revolt  of  Thebes,  and  the  New  Athenian  Confederacy. 
—  The  attack  upon  Spartan  rule  game  from  Thebes  and  Athens,, 
who  had  been  so  wantonly  injured.     The  Spartan  garrison  at 

iFor  the  world  this  was  no  doubt  well,  in  view  of  Alexander's  conquests 
later  ;  but  from  a  Greek  point  of  yiew  the  ruin  of  the  confederacy  was  most 
unhappy.  Advanced  students  may  consult  Grote,  X.  67-94,  and  Freeman's, 
Federal  Govemmenf,^  1. 190-197^  on.  the.  nature  of  this  fedexal  state. 


206  FALL  OF  ATHENS  TO   FALL  OF  HELLAS.  [§230 

Thebes  supported  an  oligarcliic  Theban  government  whose 
terrorism  drove  crowds  of  citizens  into  exile.  Athens  received 
them,  as  Thebes  had  sheltered  Athenian  fugitives  in  the  time 
of  the  Thirty  Tyrants ;  and  from  Athens  their  leader  Pelopidas 
struck  the  return  blow.^  Thebes  was  surprised  and  seized  by 
the  exiles,  and  the  government  passed  into  the  hands  of  the 
democrats. 

An  indecisive  war  with  Sparta  followed  for  some  years. 
During  this  conflict,  in  377-376  B.C.,  the  cities  of  the  Aegean 
began  to  seek  protection  against  Sparta  in  a  new  league  with 
Athens.  This  confederacy  had  a  definite  written  constitution.^ 
Each  state  was  to  send  a  deputy  to  a  congress  at  Athens. 
Athens  herself  was  to  have  no  representative  in  the  congress, 
but  she  was  to  have  a  veto  upon  its  decisions.  Thus  the  con- 
federacy consisted  of  two  parts,  —  Athens  and  the  allies, 
neither  of  which  could  coerce  the  other.  The  old  arrangement 
of  contributions  of  money  and  ships  was  adopted  under  new 
names.  The  league  came  to  count  seventy  communities ;  but 
it  was  designed  only  to  check  Sparta,  and  it  faded  away  when 
Sparta  became  too  weak  to  be  feared. 

230.  Leuctra ;  the  Overthrow  of  Sparta.  —  In  371  e.g.  the  con- 
tending parties,  wearied  with  war,  concluded  peace.  But  when 
the  deputies  were  about  to  sign  for  their  cities,  Epaminondas, 
the  Theban  representative,  demanded  the  right  to  sign  for  all 
Boeotia,  as  Sparta  did  for  all  Laconia.  Sparta,  therefore,  ex- 
cluded Thebes  from  the  peace  and  turned  to  crush  her,  now 
left  alone.  A  powerful  army  at  once  invaded  Boeotia,  —  and 
met  with  an  overwhelming  defeat  by  a  smaller  Theban  force 
at  Leuctra. 

This  amazing  result  was  due  to  the  military  genius  of  Epam- 
inondas. Hitherto  the  Greeks  had  fought  in  extended  lines, 
from  eight  to  twelve  men  deep.  Against  such  a  Spartan  line 
Epaminondas  adopted  a  new  arrangement  that  marks  a  step  in 

1  Special  reports :  Pelopidas'  expedition  from  Athens ;  the  Social  War. 
a  Gilbert,  435  ff.,  or  Holm,  HI.  85-87. 


§230] 


THE   SPARTAN  SUPREMACY. 


207 


warfare.  He  massed  his  best  troops  in  a  solid  column,  fifty 
deep,  on  the  left,  opposite  the  Spartan  wing  in  the  Pelopon- 
nesian  army.  His  other  troops  were  spread  out  as  thin  as 
possible.  The  solid  phalanx  was  set  in  motion  first ;  then  the 
thinner  center  and  right  wing  advanced  more  slowly,  so  as  to 
engage  the  attention  of  the  enemy  opposite,  but  not  to  come 
into  action  until  the  bat- 
tle should  have  been  won 
by  the  massed  column. 
In  short,  Epaminondas 
simply  adopted  a  device 
whereby  he  could  safely 
mass  a  great  part  of  his 
force  against  one  part  of 
his  enemy's  line.^  The 
weight  of  the  Theban 
charge  crushed  through 
and  trampled  under  the 
Spartan  force.  Four  hundred  of  the  seven  hundred  Spartans, 
with  their  king  and  with  a  thousand  Perioeci,  went  down  in 
ten  minutes.  The  field  was  won,  and  Sparta  was  a  second- 
rate  power.  The  mere  loss  was  a  fatal  enough  blow,  now 
that  Spartan  citizenship  was  so  reduced,  —  the  number  of  full 
citizens  after  this  battle  did  not  exceed  fifteen  hundred, — 
but  the  effect  upon  the  military  prestige  of  Sparta  was  mqj-e 
deadly.  None  the  less,  the  Spartan  character  never  showed  to 
better  advantage.  Sparta  was  always  greater  in  defeat  than  in 
victory.  Her  virtue  was  that  of  endurance  rather  than  of 
action;  and  she  met  her  fate  with  heroic  courage.  The  news 
of  the  overthrow  did  not  interfere  with  a  festival  that  was 
going  on,  and  only  the  relatives  of  the  survivors  of  the  battle 
appeared  in  mourning. 

1  The  Spartans  seem  to  have  been  unable  to  modify  their  military  system  so 
as  to  cope  with  the  evident  peril  from  these  new  tactics,  which  were  to  win 
again  with  almost  equal  ease  at  Mantinea  (§  231).  After  this,  Sparta  played 
little  part  in  Greece  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years,  until  the  time  of  Cleomehes 
(§266). 


208     FALL  OF  ATHENS  TO  FALL  OF  HELLAS.    [§231 


IL  THEBAN  SUPREMACY. 

231.  The  Interest  in  the  Brief  Supremacy  of  Thebes  centers 
in  two  facts  — the  personality  of  Epaminondas  and  the  connec- 
tion with  young  Philip  of  Macedon. 

Epaminondas  ^  marks  one  of  the  fair  heights  to  which  human 
nature  ascends.  With  a  more  lovable  and  more  justly  balanced 
character,  he  sought  to  do  for  Thebes  what  Pericles  had  done 
for  Athens;  and  while  he  lived,  success  seemed  possible. 
Sparta  was  humiliated  and  Laconia  ravaged.  Messenia  was 
liberated  on  one  side,  with  its  new  capital,  Messene,  and  Arcadia 
was  organized  into  a  federal  union  on  another  side  —  "  to  sur- 
round Sparta  with  a  perpetual  blockade."  In  the  latter  district, 
Mantinea  was  restored,  and  Epaminondas  united  forty  scattered 
villages  into  a  new  city,  Megalopolis  (the  Great  City).  Except 
for  aid  from  Athens,  Sparta  probably  would  have  been  totally 
destroyed.  Epaminondas  then  turned  upon  Athens,  built  fleets, 
swept  the  Athenian  navy  from  the  seas,  and  made  Euboea  a 
Theban  possession.  Meantime  Pelopidas  had  been  active  in 
the  north.  Both  Thessaly  and  Macedonia  were  brought  under 
Theban  influence,  and  the  young  Philip^  prince  of  Macedon, 
spent  some  years  in  Thebes  as  a  hostage,  learning  lessons  in 
war  and  in  politics  that  were  to  result  in  the  conquest  of 
Greece  and  of  Asia. 

*Thus  Thebes  had  replaced  Sparta  as  head  of  Greece,  and  a 
humiliating  embassy  to  the  Persian  court  obtained  express 
recognition  of  that  fact  from  the  Great  King.  This  leadership, 
however,  rested  solely  on  the  supreme  genius  of  one  statesman, 
and  vanished  instantly  at  his  death.  In  362  B.C.,  for  the  fourth 
time  Epaminondas  marched  against  Sparta,  and  at  Mantinea 
won  another  great  victory,  by  tactics  like  those  of  Leuctra. 
This  was  the  greatest  land  battle  ever  fought  between  Hellenes, 
and  nearly  all  the  states  of  Greece  took  part  on  one  side  or  the 
other.     The  victory  of  Thebes  ought  to  have  made  her  suprem- 

1  Special  report  upon  his  character  and  work. 


§233]  THE   RISE   OF   MACEDON.  209 

acy  lasting ;  but  Epaminondas  himself  fell  on  the  field,  and  his 
city  sank  at  once  to  a  slow  and  narrow  policy. 

No  state  was  left  in  Greece  to  assume  leadership.  Even 
within  the  Peloponnesus,  Arcadians  and  Messenians  proved 
incapable  of  steady  government;  and  a  turbulent  anarchy,  in 
place  of  the  stern  Spartan  rule,  seemed  the  only  fruit  of  the 
brief  glory  of  the  great  Theban. 

III.     THE   RISE   OF  MACEDON. 

232.  Political  Demoralization  in  Hellas:   Mutual  Stalemate.— 

The  failure  of  the  Greek  cities  to  federate  or  consolidate 
made  it  certain  that  sooner  or  later  they  must  fall  to  some  out- 
side power.  Sparta  and  Thebes  (with  Persian  aid)  had  been 
able  to  prevent  Athenian  leadership ;  Thebes  and  Athens  had 
overthrown  Sparta ;  Sparta  and  Athens  had  still  been  able  to 
stalemate  Thebes.  Each  state  had  been  discredited  and  ex- 
hausted in  turn ;  and  each,  in  varying  degree,  had  sinned  by 
calling  in  Persia  or  by  recognizing  her  as  arbiter  in  Hellenic 
politics.  No  one  of  the  three  had  thought  of  empire  primarily 
as  involving  duties  to  the  subjects.  The  Greeks  had  not  de- 
generated,^ as  is  sometimes  taught;  but  the  imperfections  of 
their  political  system  had  become  apparent,  and  it  was  to  be 
replaced  by  something  stronger. 

233.  Macedon :  its  People  and  King.  —  The  Macedonians  were 
part  of  the  "outer  rim  of  the  Greek  race."  They  were  still 
barbaric,  and  perhaps  were  mixed  somewhat  with  non-Hellenic 
elements.  They  had  remained  in  the  tribal  stage  until  just 
before  this  time,  when  a  series  of  able  kings  had  consolidated 
them  into  a  real  nation.  The  change  was  so  recent  that  Alex- 
ander a  little  later  could  say,  in  his  one  reproachful  speech  to 
his  army :  — 

"My  father,  Philip,  found  you  a  roving  people,  without  fixed  habita^ 
tions  and  without  resources,  most  of  you  clad  in  the  skins  of  animals. 


1  On  the  virtue  of  the  Greeks  in  the  third  century,  see  Holm,  III.  178  fE. 
and  194-199. 


210  FALL  OF  ATHENS   TO  FALL  OF   HELLAS.  [§233 

pasturing  a  few  sheep  among  the  mountains,  and,  to  defend  these,  waging 
a  luckless  warfare  with  the  Illyrians,  the  Triballans,  and  the  Thracians 
on  your  borders.  But  he  gave  you  the  soldier's  cloak  to  replace  the  skins 
and  led  you  down  from  the  mountains  into  the  plain,  making  you  a  worthy 
match  in  war  against  the  barbarians  on  your  frontier,  so  that  you  no 
longer  trusted  to  the  security  of  your  strongholds  so  much  as  to  your 
own  personal  valor  for  safety.  He  made  you  to  dwell  in  cities  and  pro- 
vided you  with  wholesome  laws  and  institutions.  Over  those  same  bar- 
barians, who  before  had  plundered  you  and  carried  off  as  booty  both 

yourselves  and  your 
substance,  he  made 
you,  instead  of  slaves 
and  underlings,  to  be 
masters  and  lords."  — 
Arrian,  vii.  9. 

This  Philip  II  is 
one  of  the  most  re- 
markable men  in 
history.^  He  was 
ambitious,  crafty, 
sagacious,  persist- 
ent, unscrupulous, 
an  unfailing  judge 
of  character,  and 
a  marvelous  organ- 

^  izer.  He  set  himself 

Philip  II.  —  From  a  gold  medallion  struck  by        ,  i      i  •  i 

Alexander.  ^o  make  his  people 

true  Greeks  by  mak- 
ing them  the  leaders  of  Greece.  He  was  determined  to  secure 
that  primacy  for  which  Athens,  Sparta,  and  Thebes  had  all 
vainly  striven.  The  struggle  revealed  the  advantages  of  a  con- 
solidated national  monarchy  as  against  divided,  mutually  jeal- 
ous city  states,  and  of  a  single  powerful  ruler,  able  to  keep 
his  own  council  and  to  pursue  one  policy  unwaveringly,  as 
against  public  discussions,  changing  votes,  and  conflicting  plans, 
in  city  assemblies.     The  result  was  foregone. 

1  Read  Wheeler's  characterization,  Alexander  the  Great,  5-7. 


234] 


THE   RISE   OF   MACEDON. 


211 


234.  Progress  of  the  Conflict.  —  At  Philip's  accession  Macedon 
was  still  a  poor  country  without  a  safe  harbor.  The  first  need 
was  an  outlet  on  the  sea.  Philip  found  one  by  conquering  the 
Chalcidic  peninsula.  Though  Sparta  had  ruined  the  Athenian 
power  there,  and  afterward  the  Olynthian,  yet  both  Athens 
and  Olynthus  kept  important  possessions  in  that  region,  and, 
at  this  stage,  by  combining  they  might  still  have  checked 
Macedon.  By  playing  them  off  against  each  other,  Philip  won  ; 
and  his  energy  developed  the  gold  minefe  of  the  district  until 
they  furnished  him  a  yearly  revenue  of  a  thousand  talents  — 
as  large  as  that  of  Athens  at  her  greatest  power.  Then  he 
turned  to  Greece  itself,  and  here,  too,  he  used  an  adroit 
mingling  of  cunning,  bribery,  and  force.  In  all  Greek  states, 
among  the  pretended  patriot  statesmen,  there  were  secret  emis- 


212  FALL   OF  ATHENS  TO   FALL  OF   HELLAS.  [§235 

saries  in  his  pay.  He  set  city  against  city ;  and  the  constant 
tendency  to  quarrels  among  the  Greeks  played  into  his  hands. 
The  only  man  who  saw  clearly  the  designs  of  Philip,  and 
who  at  the  same  time  constantly  opposed  them,  was  Demosthe- 
nes the  Athenian,  the  greatest  orator  of  Greece.  To  check 
Macedonia  became  the  one  passionate  aim  of  his  life ;  and  the 
last  glow  of  Greek  political  independence  flames  up  in  his 
appeals  to  Athens  to  champion  Hellas  against  Macedon  as  she 
had  once  done  against  Persia,  irrespective  of  all  selfish  ends :  — 

"  Suppose  that  you  have  one  of  the  gods  as  surety  that  Philip  will  leave 
you  untouched,  in  the  name  of  all  the  gods,  it  is  a  shame  for  you  in  igno- 
rant stupidity  to  sacrifice  the  rest  of  Hellas  ! " 

The  noble  orations  by  which  he  sought  to  move  the  Athe- 
nian assembly  to  action  against  Philip  (the  Philippics)^  are  still 
unrivaled  in  that  form  of  literature,^  but  their  practical  effect 
was  to  secure  only  a  halting  policy. 

235.  The  Macedonian  Army.  —  Meantime,  Philip  built  up  an 
army  as  superior  to  the  four-months  citizen  armies  of  Hellas 
as  his  diplomacy  was  superior  to  that  of  a  popular  assembly. 
His  wealth  enabled  him  to  keep  ready  for  action  a  disciplined 
force  of  veterans.  He  enlarged  the  Theban  phalanx,  and  im- 
proved it,  so  that  the  ranks  presented  five  rows  of  bristling 
spears  projecting  beyond  the  front  soldier.'  The  flanks  were 
protected  by  light-armed  troops  modeled  after  the  peltasts  of 
Iphicrates ;  and  the  Macedonian  nobles  furnished  the  finest  of 
cavalry.  At  the  same  time  a  field  "artillery"  first  appears, 
able  to  throw  darts  and  great  stones  three  hundred  yards. 
Such  a  mixture  of  troops,  and  on  a  permanent  footing,  was 
altogether  novel.  Philip  was  organizing  the  engine  with  which 
his  son  was  to  conquer  the  world. 

236.  Chaeronea  and  the  Congress  of  Corinth.  —  In  338  b.c. 
Philip  threw  off  the  mask  and  invaded  Greece.     Athens  and 

1  Special  report :  Demosthenes. 

2  Special  report :  the  Macedonian  phalanx.  A  good  account  is  found  in 
Curteis'  Rise  of  the  Macedonian  Empire,  35-37. 


§237]  THE   RISE   OF   MACEDON.  213 

Thebes  combined  against  him  —  to  be  hopelessly  crushed  at 
Chaeronea.  Then  a  congress  of  Greek  states  at  Corinth  recog- 
nized Macedonia  as  the  head  of  Greece.  A  formal  constitu- 
tion ^  provided  that  the  separate  states  should  retain  their  local 
self-government  without  payment  of  tribute,  but  that  foreign 
matters,  including  war  and  peace,  should  be  committed  to 
Philip.  Philip  was  also  declared  general-in-chief  of  the  armies 
of  Greece  for  a  war  against  Persia. 

237.   The  History  of  Hellas  merged  in  a  History  of  Hellenism. — 

Thus  Philip  posed,  wisely,  not  as  the  vanquisher,  but  as  the 
champion  of  Greece  against  the  great  foe  of  all  Hellenes.  He 
showed  a  patient  magnanimity,  too,  toward  fickle  Greek  states, 
and  in  particular  he  strove  to  reconcile  Athens.  Indeed, 
Philip  needed,  not  reluctant  subjects,  but  willing  followers. 

The  conquest  was  disguised  under  the  color  of  national  sym- 
pathies, but  none  the  less  the  history  of  Hellas  had  closed. 
Greece  thereafter,  until  well  into  the  nineteenth  century,  was 
only  a  province  of  this  or  that  foreign  power.  We  pass  to  the 
story  of  a  wider  Hellenism  and  the  creation  of  a  new  Graeco- 
Oriental  world. 

For  this,  Philip  had  prepared  by  his  two  great  achievements. 
He  had  united  Greece  under  Macedonian  supremacy  by  means 
of  a  national  undertaking,  and  he  had  previously  created  the 
Macedonian  political  and  military  instruments  with  which  his 
son  was  to  carry  that  undertaking  to  successful  issue.  For 
these  things  Philip  II  ranks  among  the  great  positive  forces  in 
history. 


For  Further  Reading. — Sources:  Xenophon's  Hellenica  and  De- 
mosthenes' Orations.  Modern  authorities  :  Wheeler's  Alexander,  14-18 
and  64-80  (the  best  brief  account)  ;  Holm,  III.  ;  Curtius ;  Curteis'  Bise 
of  the  Macedonian  Empire ;  Sanky's  Spartan  and  Theban  Supremacies. 

Exercise.  —  Review  the  period  405-338  b.c.  by  "catchwords"  (see 
exercise  at  close  of  §  176). 

iHolm,  III.  283ff. 


PART   III. 

THE  GRAEOO-OEIENTAL  WOELD.^ 

With  Alexander  the  stage  of  Greek  influence  spreads  across  the 
world,  and  Greece  becomes  only  a  small  item  in  the  heritage  of  the 
Greeks.  — Mahaffy. 

The  seed-ground  of  European  civilization  is  neither  Greece  nor  the 
Orient,  but  a  loorld  joined  of  the  two.  —  Benjamin  Ide  Wheeler. 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE   MINGLING   OP  EAST   AND   WEST. 
I.     THE   CONQUESTS   OF  ALEXANDER. 

238.  Alexander's  Youth  and  Training.  —  Two  great  men  en- 
gaged in  the  same  work  could  hardly  differ  more  widely  than 
Philip  of  Macedon  and  his  greater  son,  Alexander.  The  con- 
trast was  due  no  doubt  to  Alexander's  mother,  Olympias,  a 
half-barbaric  Epirot  princess  of  intense  passions  and  generous 
enthusiasms,  which  mounted  sometimes  into  frenzied  religious 
ecstasies.  Says  Benjamin  Ide  Wheeler  (Alexander'  the  Great, 
5):- 

"  While  it  was  from  his  father  that  Alexander  inherited  his  sagacious 
insight  into  men  and  things,  and  his  brilliant  capacity  for  timely  and 
determined  action,  it  was  to  his  mother  that  he  undoubtedly  owed  that 
passionate  warmth  of  nature  which  betrayed  itself  not  only  in  the  furious 
outbursts  of  temper  occasionally  characteristic  of  him,  but  quite  as  much 
in  a  romantic  fervor  of  attachment  and  love  for  friends,  a  delicate  tender- 
ness of  sympathy  for  the  weak,  and  a  princely  largeness  and  generosity 
of  soul  toward  all,  that  made  him  so  deeply  beloved  of  men  and  so  enthu- 
siastically followed." 

1  Cf .  §  3  and  §  5. 
214 


§239]  THE   CONQUESTS  OF  ALEXANDER.  215 

J  Much,  too,  in  Alexander's  character  was  due  to  careful  train- 
ing. As  a  boy,  he  had  been  fearless  and  self-willed,  with  fer- 
vent affections  and  with  a  restless  eagerness  for  action ;  but 
his  earliest  tutors  taught  him  to  curb  his  impulses,  to  endure 
hardship,  and  to  despise  ease  and  luxury.  His  later  education 
had  been  directed  by  Aristotle  (§  207).  The  young  prince  had 
^hown  an  impatient  ambition  to  master  all  departments  of 
knowledge,  and  he  was  devoted  to  Homer,  whose  poems  he 
knew  by  heart.  Homer's  Achilles  he  claimed  as  an  ancestor 
and  took  for  his  ideal.^ 


Alexander.  Alexander  in  a  Lion-hunt. 

The  two  sides  of  a  gold  medallion  of  Tarsus. 

239.  Accession :  Restoration  of  Order. — Philip  was  assassinated 
two  years  after  Chaeronea,  when  just  ready  to  begin  the  inva- 
sion of  Asia.  Alexander  was  a  stripling  of  twenty  years.  He 
was  to  prove  a  rare  military  genius ;  indeed,  he  never  refused 
an  engagement  and  never  lost  a  battle;  and  also,  on  occasion, 
he  could  be  shrewd  and  adroit  in  diplomacy.  But  at  this  time 
he  was  known  only  as  an  impetuous  youth ;  and  it  was  natural 
enough  to  expect  a  rash  boy  to  fail  to  hold  together  the  empire 
that  had  been  built  up  by  the  force  and  fraud  of  the  most  astute 
ruler  of  the  time.     Revolt  and  disorder  broke  out  everywhere ; 

1  Special  report :  anecdotes  from  Plutarch  regarding  Alexander's  boyhood. 


216 


THE   MINGLING   OF   EAST  AND   WEST. 


[§239 


but  the  young  king  showed  himself#at  once  both  statesman 
and  general.  With  marvelous  rapidity  he  struck  crushing 
blows  on  this  side  and  on  that.  A  hurried  expedition  con- 
ciliated Greece ;  the  savage  and  semi-dependent  tribes  of  the 
north  were  quieted  by  a  rapid  march  beyond  the  Danube; 
then,  turning  on  Illyria,  Alexander  forced  the  mountain  passes 

and  overran  the  coun- 
try ;  and  while  it  was 
believed  that  he  was 
killed  or  defeated 
among  the  barbarians, 
he  suddenly  appeared 
a  second  time  in  rebel- 
lious Greece,  falling 
with  swift  and  terri- 
ble vengeance  upon 
Thebes,  the  center  of 
revolt.  The  city  was 
taken  by  storm  and 
leveled  to  the  ground, 
except  for  the  house 
of  Pindar  (§  141)  ;  and 
the  thirty  thousand 
surviving  inhabitants 
were  sold  as  slaves. 
The  other  states  were 
terrified  into  abject 
submission,  and  were 
treated  generously.  A 
congress  at  Corinth  renewed  the  compact  formerly  made  with 
Philip;  and,  like  his  father,  Alexander  now  turned,  as  the 
champion  of  Hellas,  to  the  attack  upon  Persia.  With  the  cool 
and  practical  Philip,  this  attitude  may  perhaps  have  been  only 
a  politician's  device  to  secure  empire  in  Hellas.  With  the 
enthusiastic  Alexander,  in  the  full  flush  of  power,  it  became  at 
once  an  all-controlling  ideal. 


Head  of  Alexander  Rondanini. 
Probably  a  copy  of  the  gold-ivory  portrait  statue 
by  the  sculptor  Leochares,  just  after  the  bat- 
tle of  Chaeronea.     (Now  at  Munich.) 


§240]  THE   CONQUESTS   OF   ALEXANDER.  217 

240.  The  Persian  Campaigns.  —  In  the  spring  of  334  b.c.  Alex- 
ander crossed  the  Hellespont  with  thirty-five  thousand  disci- 
plined troops.  The  number  was  quite  enough  to  scatter  any 
Oriental  army,  and  as  large  as  any  general  could  handle  in 
long  and  rapid  marches  in  a  hostile  country ;  but  it  contrasts 
strangely  with  the  huge  hordes  Xerxes  had  led  against  Greece 
a  century  and  a  half  before. 

The  path  of  march  and  the  immense  distances  traversed  can 
be  best  traced  by  the  map.  The  conquest  of  the  empire  occu- 
pied five  years,  and  the  story  falls  into  three  distinct  chapters, 
each  marked  by  a  world-famous  battle, 

a.  Asia  Minor :  Battle  of  the  Granicus. — The  Persian  satraps 
of  Asia  Minor  met  the  invaders  at  the  Granicus,  a  small  stream 
in  the  Troad.  With  the  personal  rashness  that  was  the  one 
blot  upon  his  supreme  military  skill,  Alexander  led  the  Mace- 
donian charge  through  the  river  and  up  the  steep  bank  into  the 
midst  of  the  Persian  c^alry,  where  he  barely  escaped  death. 
The  Persian  nobles  fought,  as  always,  with  gallant  self-devo- 
tion, but  were  utterly  routed.  Then  the  Greek  mercenaries  in 
Persian  pay  were  surrounded  and  cut  down  to  a  man.  No 
quarter  was  to  be  given  Hellenes  fighting  as  traitors  to  the 
cause  of  Hellas.  The  victory  cost  Alexander  only  one  hundred 
and  twenty  men,  and  it  made  him  master  of  all  Asia  Minor. 
He  then  set  up  democracies  in  the  Greek  cities,  —  requiring 
them,  however,  to  grant  amnesties  to  other  factions,  —  and  he 
spent  some  months  in  receiving  the  submission  and  organizing 
the  government  of  the  various  provinces. 

h.  The  Mediterranean  Coast :  Battle  oflssus. — To  strike  at  the 
heart  of  the  empire  at  once  would  have  been  to  leave  in  the  rear 
a  large  Persian  fleet  which  might  encourage  revolt  in  Greece. 
Alexander  wisely  determined  to  secure  the  entire  coast  before 
marching  into  the  interior.  Turning  south,  just  after  crossing 
the  mountains  that  separate  Asia  Minor  from  Syria,  at  Issus 
he  defeated  a  Persian  host  of  six  hundred  thousand  men,  led 
by  King  Darius  in  person.  The  cramped  space  between  the 
mountains  and  the  sea  made  the  very  numbers  of  the  Persians 


218  THE   MINGLING  OF   EAST  AND   WEST.  [§241 

an  embarrassment  to  themselves,  and  they  soon  became  a  hud- 
dled mob  of  fugitives.  Alexander  now  assumed  the  title  of 
King  of  Persia.  The  sieges  of  Tyre  (§  59)  and  Gaza  detained 
him  a  year,  but  Egypt  welcomed  him  as  a  deliverer,  and  by 
the  close  of  332  b.c.  all  the  sea  power  of  the  world  was  his. 
While  in  Egypt  he  showed  his  constructive  genius  by  found- 
ing Alexandria  at  one  of  the  mouths  of  the  Nile  ^-  a  city  des- 
tined to  be  the  commercial  and  intellectual  capital  of  the  world 
for  centuries,  where  before  there  had  been  a  mere  haunt  of 
pirates. 

c.  Tlie  Tigris-Euphrates  District :  Battle  of  Arhela. — Keject- 
ing  contemptuously  a  proposed  division  of  the  empire  with 
Darius,  Alexander  resumed  his  march.  Following  the  ancient 
routes  from  Egypt  to  Assyria  (§  12),  he  met  Darius  at  Arbela, 
near  ancient  Nineveh.  The  Persians  are  said  to  have  numbered 
a  million  men.  Alexander  purposely  allowed  them  choice 
of  time  and  place,  and  by  a  third  decisive  victory  proved  the 
hopelessness  of  resistance  in  the  field.  Darius  never  gathered 
another  army.  The  capitals  of  the  empire  —  Babylon,  Susa, 
Ecbatana,  Persepolis  —  surrendered,  with  enormous  treasure  in 
gold  and  silver,  and  the  Persian  Empire  had  fallen  (331  b.c.) 

241.  Campaigns  in  the  Far  East.  —  The  next  six  years  went, 
however,  to  much  more  desperate  warfare  in  the  eastern  moun- 
tain regions,  and  in  the  Punjab.  Alexander  carried  his  arms 
almost  twice  as  far  east  from  Babylon  as  Babylon  was  from 
Macedonia.  He  traversed  great  deserts,  subdued  the  warlike 
and  princely  barons  of  Bactria  and  Sogdiana  up  to  the  steppes 
of  the  wild  Tartar  tribes  beyond  the  Oxus,  twice  forced  the 
passes  of  the  Hindukush  (a  feat  almost  unparalleled),  subdued 
the  valiant  mountaineers  of  what  is  now  Afghanistan,  and  led 
his  army  into  the  fertile  and  populous  plains  of  northern  India. 
He  crossed  the  Indus,  won  realms  beyond  the  ancient  Persian 
province  of  the  Punjab,  and  planned  still  more  distant  empires ; 
but  on  the  banks  of  the  Hyphasis  his  faithful  Macedonians 
refused  to  be  led  farther  to  waste  aWay  in  inhuman  perils, 


§  242]  THE   RESULTS   OF  ALEXANDER'S   WORK.  219 

and  the  chagrined  conqueror  was  compelled  to  return  to  Baby- 
lon —  to  die  there  of  a  fever  two  years  later  (323  b.c.)  in  the 
midst  of  preparations  to  extend  his  conquests  both  east  and 
west.^  The  last  years,  however,  were  given  mainly  to  organ- 
izing the  empire ;  and  to  the  results  of  this  constructive  work 
we  will  now  turn. 


IL     THE   RESULTS   OF  ALEXANDER'S   WORK. 

242.  Alexander's  Expanding  Views:  "Merging  of  East  and 
West."  —  Alexander  began  his  conquest  to  avenge  the  West 
upon  the  East ;  but  as  he  came  to  see  the  excellent  and  noble 
qualities  in  Oriental  life  also,  he  rose  rapidly  with  the  years  to 
a  broader  vision.  He  aimed  no  longer  to  hold  a  world-empire 
in  subjection  by  the  force  of  a  small  conquering  tribe,  but 
to  amalgamate  Persian  and  Greek  into  one  people  on  terms  of 
equality  and  cooperation ;  he  wished  to  marry  the  East  and 
the  West  —  "to  bring  them  together  into  a  composite  civiliza- 
tion, to  which  each  should  contribute  its  better  elements." 

Persian  youth  were  trained  by  thousands  in  Macedonian  fashion  to  re- 
place the  veterans  of  Alexander's  army  ;  Persian  nobles  were  welcomed 
at  court  and  given  high  preferment ;  and  in  general  the  government  of 
Asia  was  entrusted  largely  to  Asiatics,  on  a  system  similar  to  that  of 
Darius  the.  Great  (§§  75-77).  Alexander  himself  adopted  Persian  man- 
ners and  customs,  and  married  Persian  wives,  and  he  bribed  and  coaxed 
his  officers  and  soldiers  to  do  the  like.  This  was  all  part  of  a  deliberate 
design  to  encourage  the  fusion  of  the  two  peoples.  The  Macedonians 
jealously  protested,  and  even  rebelled,  but  were  quickly  reduced  to  obedi- 
ence ;  and  there  is  no  question  as  to  the  statesmanlike  wisdom  of  Alexan- 
der's plan. 

"The  dream  of  his  youth  melted  away,  but  a  new  vision  in  larger 
perspecti^ve  arose  with  ever-strengthening  outlines  in  its  place.  The  cham- 
pion of  the  West  against  the  East  faded  in  mist,  and  the  form  of  a  world- 
monarch,  standing  above  the  various  worlds  of  men  and  belonging  to 

1  Topic :  anecdotes  of  Alexander's  later  years ;  the  change  in  his  charac- 
ter. See  Wheeler's  Alexander  for  an  ardent  defense,  and  note  pp.  227-229  for 
an  excellent  description. 


220 


THE   MINGLING   OF   EAST  AND   WEST. 


[§243 


none,  but  molding  them  all  into  one,  emerged  in  its  stead."  —  Wheeler, 
Alexander  the  Great,  376.1 

243.   Hellenism  the  Active  Element :  the  Many  Alexandrias.  — 

At  the  same  time  Alexander  saw  that  to  fulfill  this  mission  he 
must  throw  open  the  East  to  Greek  ideas.     The  races  might 

mingle  their  blood;  the 
Greek  might  learn  from 
the  Orient,  and  in  the  end 
be  absorbed  by  it;  but 
the  thought  and  art  of 
little  Hellas  must  leaven 
with  its  active  energy  the 
vast  passive  mass  of  the 
East. 

A  vital  measure,  adopted 
consciously  to  this  end, 
was  the  foundation  of 
chains  of  cities  to  bind 
together  these  conquests 
and  to  become  the  homes 
of  Hellenic  influence. 
Alexander  himself  built 
seventy  of  these  towns 
(usually  called  from  his 
name,  like  the  first  Alex- 
andria in  Egypt).  Their 
walls  sprang  up  under  the 
pick  and  spade  of  the  soldiery  along  the  lines  of  march  — 
sometimes  mere  garrison  towns  on  distant  frontiers,  but 
oftener  mighty  emporiums  at  the  intersection  of  great  lines 
of  trade.  There  was  an  Alexandria  on  the  Jaxartes,  on  the 
Indus,  on  the  Euphrates,  as  well  as  on  the  Nile.  One  great 
city,  we  are  told,  walls  and  houses,  was  completed  in  twenty 


Alexander  as  Apollo.— Now  in  the 
Capitoline  Museum. 


1  Benjamin  Ida  Wheeler,  throughout  his  brilliant  volume,  gives  special  em- 
phasis to  this  view  of  Alexander's  mission. 


§243]  THE   RESULTS  OF  ALEXANDER'S   WORK.  221 

days.  The  sites  were  chosen  wisely,  and  many  remain  great 
capitals  to  this  day,  like  Herat  and  Kandahar  (Iskandar,  the 
Oriental  form  of  the  name  Alexander). 

This  building  of  Greek  cities  was  continued  by  Alexander's 
successors.^  Once  more,  and  on  a  vaster  scale  than  ever  before, 
the  Greek  genius  for  colonization  found  vent.  Each  of  these 
cities  from  the  first  had  a  Greek  nucleus.  Usually  this  con- 
sisted only  of  worn-out  veterans  left  behind  as  a  garrison ;  but 
enterprising  youth  emigrating  from  old  Hellas,  almost  to  its 
depopulation,  continued  to  reenforce  the  Greek  influence.  The 
native  village  people  roundabout  were  gathered  in  to  make  the 
bulk  of  the  inhabitants,  and  these  also  soon  took  on  Greek 
character :  from  scattered,  ignorant  rustics,  they  became  arti- 
sans and  merchants,  devotedly  attached  to  Greek  rule  and 
zealous  missionaries  of  Greek  culture.  The  cities  "were  all 
built  on  a  large  and  comfortable  model ;  they  were  well  paved ; 
they  had  ample  provision  for  lighting  by  night,  and  a  good 
water  supply ;  they  had  police  arrangements,  and  good  thor- 
oughfares." They  received  extensive  privileges  and  enjoyed 
a  large  amount  of  self-government,  even  in  the  despotic  East : 
they  met  in  their  own  assemblies,  managed  their  own  courts, 
and  collected  their  own  taxes.  They  made  the  backbone  of 
Hellenism  throughout  the  world  for  centuries,  and  were  truly 
Greek  in  character.  Greek  was  the  ordinary  speech  of  their 
streets;  Greek  architecture  built  their  temples  and  houses; 
Greek  sculpture  adorned  them ;  they  celebrated  Greek  games 
and  festivals ;  and,  no  longer  in  little  Hellas  alone,  but  over 
the  whole  East,  in  Greek  theaters,  vast  audiences  were  educated 
by  the  plays  of  Euripides. 

The  unity  of  this  widespread  civilization  cannot  be  insisted  upon  too 
strongly.  Political  unity,  it  is  true,  was  soon  lost;  but  the  oneness  of 
culture  endured  for  centuries,  and  maintained  its  character  even  after 
Roman  conquest.  Over  all  that  vast  area  there  was  for  all  cultivated 
men  a  single  common  language,  a  common  literature,  a  common  mode  of 

1  See  Grote,  ch.  xciv.,  for  a  discussion  of  the  number  of  such  foundations. 


222  THE   MINGLING   OF   EAST  AND   WEST.  [§244 

thought.    The  civilization  that  had  been  developed  by  one  small  people 
became  now  the  heritage  of  a  great  world. 

244.  Reaction  upon  Hellas  and  upon  Hellenic  Civilization.  — Hel- 
las itself  lost  importance  relatively,  and  even  absolutely.  It 
was  drained  of  its  intellect  and  enterprise,  which  wandered  to 
the  east  to  win  fortune  and  distinction.  And,  of  course,  the 
victorious  Hellenic  civilization  was  modified  by  its  victory, 
both  in  the  old  and  in  the  new  home.  Sympathies  were  broad- 
ened.    The  barrier  between  Greek  and  barbarian  faded  away. 

Without  some  compromise  with  Orientalism,  Greek  ideas 
would  hardly  have  won  their  way  so  rapidly.^  In  particular, 
we  may  note  two  forms  of  the  reaction  upon  the  older  Greek 
culture :  the  economic  and  the  scientific. 

a.  Economic. — The  wealth  of  the  world,  and  especially  of  Europe, 
was  enormously  augmented.  The  vast  treasure  hoards  of  Oriental  mon- 
archs  were  thrown  again  into  circulation,  and  large  sums  were  brought 
back  to  Europe  by  returned  mercenaries  and  adventurers.  Trade  was 
stimulated  ;  a  higher  standard  of  living  arose  for  the  many  ;  manifold 
new  comforts  and  enjoyments  adorned  and  enriched  life.  In  its  economic 
aspects,  the  conquest  had  results  not  unlike  those  of  the  discovery  of 
Mexico  and  Peru  upon  medieval  Europe,  Somewhat  later,  perhaps  as 
a  result  of  this  increase  of  wealth,  there  came  other  and  unfortunate 
changes.  Extremes  of  wealth  and  poverty  appeared  side  by  side,  as  in 
our  modern  society  ;  the  great  cities  had  their  hungry,  sullen,  dangerous 
mobs  ;  and  socialistic  agitation  began  on  a  large  scale.  These  last  phe- 
nomena, however,  concerned  only  the  last  days  of  the  Hellenic  world 
before  its  absorption  by  Rome. 

h.  Scientific.  —  A  new  era  of  scientific  progress  began.  Alexander 
himself  always  manifested  the  zeal  of  an  explorer,  and  one  of  the  most 
important  scientific  expeditions  ever  sent  out  by  any  government  is  due 
to  him  while  in  India.  When  he  first  touched  the  Indus,  he  thought  it 
the  upper  course  of  the  Nile  ;  but  he  built  a  great  fleet  of  two  thousand 
vessels,  sailed  down  the  river  to  the  Indian  Ocean,  and  then"(iispatched 

1  The  change  suggests  to  the  mind  the  similar  change  that  took  place  when 
a  Jewish  religion  widened  to  the  faith  of  the  Christian  world.  And,  indeed, 
the  conquests  of  Alexander  and  the  spread  of  a  common  culture  were  a  neces- 
sary prerequisite  for  the  later  spread  of  Christianity  over  these  regions  (§  506). 


§245]  THE   RESULTS   OF   ALEXANDER'S   WORK.  223 

his  friend  Nearclius  to  explore  that  sea  and  to  find  a  water  route  to  the 
mouth  of  the  Euphrates.  After  a  voyage  of  many  months,  Nearchus 
reached  Babylon,  thus  reopening  an  ancient  route  of  commerce  between 
Chaldea  and  India.  He  had  mapped  the  coast  line,  made  frequent  land- 
ings, and  collected  a  mass  of  observations  upon  natural  phenomena  and  a 
multitude  of  strange  plants  and  animals. 

Like  collections  were  made  by  Alexander  at  other  times,  to  be  sent  to 
his  old  instructor  Aristotle,  who  embodied  the  results  of  his  study  upon 
them  in  a  Natural  History  of  fifty  volumes.  The  Greek  intellect,  indeed, 
attracted  by  the  marvels  of  a  new  world  opened  before  it,  turned  from 
metaphysics  and  verbal  discussions  to  scientific  observation  and  to  the 
classification  of  the  facts  of  the  universe.  Again  the  result  was  not  un- 
like that  of  the  discovery  of  America  upon  the  intellect  of  medieval 
Europe.  This  impulse  was  intensified  by  the  discovery  of  the  long  series 
of  astronomical  observations  of  the  Babylonians  (§  45)  and  of  the  his- 
torical records  and  traditions  of  the  Orientals,  reaching  back  to  an  antiq- 
uity of  which  the  Greeks  had  not  dreamed.  The  active  Greek  mind, 
seizing  upon  all  this  confused  wealth  of  material,  began  to  compare  and 
put  in  order,  and  to  erect,  with  principles  of  scientific  criticism,  a  great 
system  of  knowledge  about  man  and  nature. 

245.  Summary.  —  Thus  the  new  product  was  not  sim ply- 
either  of  the  old  factors.  Alexander's  victories  are  not 
merely  events  in  military  history.  They  make  an  epoch  in 
the  onward  march  of  humanity.  Alexander  enlarged  the 
map  of  the  world  again  and  made  these  vaster  spaces  the 
home  of  a  higher  culture.  He  grafted  the  new  West  upon 
the  old  East,  and  from  this  graft  sprang  the  plant  of  our  later 
civilization. 

Alexander  died  at  thirty-two.  Had  he  lived  to  seventy,  it  is 
hard  to  say  what  he  might  not  have  done  in  providing  for  last- 
ing political  union,  and  perhaps  even  in  bringing  India  and 
China  into  the  current  of  our  civilization.  His  lamentably 
early  death  brought  about  the  political  disruption  of  his  em- 
pire, and  has  left  the  world  in  two  halves  from  that  day  to  this. 

"No  single  personality,  excepting  the  carpenter's  son  of  Nazareth,  has 
done  so  much  to  make  the  world  we  live  in  what  it  is  as  Alexander  of 
Macedon.  He  leveled  the  terrace  upon  which  European  history  built. 
Whatever  lay  within  the  range  of  his  conquests  contributed  its  part  to 


224  THE   MINGLING   OF  EAST  AND   WEST.  [§245 

form  that  Mediterranean  civilization,  which  under  Rome's  administration 
became  the  basis  of  European  life.  What  lay  beyond  was  as  if  on  another 
planet."  —  Wheeler,  Alexander  the  Great. 


References  for  Further  Reading.  —  There  is  no  contemporary 
historian  of  Alexander.  Arrian  (second  century)  and  Plutarch  are  the 
earliest  authorities  of  note,  and  they  made  use  of  histories,  now  lost,  by 
Alexander's  generals  (some  good  extracts  are  found  in  Fling's  Studies, 
No.  5).  Modern  scholars  have  availed  themselves  of  great  numbers  of 
recently  discovered  inscriptions. 

Modern  writers  :  The  best  treatment  is  Wheeler's  Alexa7ider  the  Greats 
so  freely  quoted  in  these  pages.  Advanced  students  may  consult  also 
Holm,  III.  chs.  xix.-xxix. ;  Curteis'  Bise  of  the  Macedonian  Empire  ; 
Grote,  chs.  xci.-xciv.  ;  Thirlwall's  Histoi-y  of  Greece;  Hogarth's  Philip 
and  Alexander  ;  Dodge's  ^Zexawder;  and  Mahaffy's  Story  of  Alexander'' s 
Empire,  chs.  i.-iv.  Freeman's  Alexander  (Historical  Essays,  2d  series)  is 
an  excellent  discussion,  and  the  opening  pages  give  a  critical  bibliography 
for  advanced  students. 

Topics.  —  See  suggestions  in  footnotes. 

For  advanced  work,  Fling's  Studies  make  some  excellent  suggestions  : 
i.e.  (1)  Let  a  student  compare  the  Alexander  of  Arrian  with  the  Alexan- 
der of  Plutarch,  and  both  of  these  with  some  modern  writer's  Alexander. 
This  exercise  may  be  subdivided  into  periods  or  campaigns,  and  assigned 
to  several  students.  (2)  List  the  authorities  mentioned  by  Plutarch  in 
his  Alexander,  and  ascertain  the  probable  value  of  each. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  GRAECO-ORIENTAL  WORLD  —  TO  THE  ROMAN 
CONQUEST. 

I.    THE  POLITICAL  STORY. 

246.  Wars  of  the  Succession  (323-280  b.c).  —  For  nearly 
half  a  century  after  Alexander's  death  the  political  history  of 
the  civilized  world  was  a  horrible  welter  of  war,  intrigue,  and 
assassination,  while  his  generals  strove  with  one  another  for 
empire.  For  a  time  it  seemed  possible  that  some  able  leader 
might  prove  strong  enough  to  hold  together  all  Alexander's 
conquests.  Antigonus  came  nearest  such  success ;  but  four 
other  great  generals  and  satraps  united  against  him,  and  after 
his  defeat  at  Ipsus  in  Phrygia  (301  b.c),  the  contest  became 
one  merely  over  shifting  lines  of  partition. 

247.  The  Situation  in  the  Third  Century.  —  Finally,  about  280 
B.C.,  something  like  a  fixed  order  emerged,  and  then  followed 
a  period  of  sixty  years  known  as  the  Glory  of  Hellenism.  The 
Greek  world  reached  from  the  Adriatic  to  the  Inclus,  and  con- 
sisted of:  (a)  three  great  powers,  the  kingdoms  of  Syria, 
Egypt,  and  Macedonia  ;  (b)  a  broken  chain  of  smaller  mon- 
archies scattered  from  Media  to  Epirus,'  some  of  them,  like 
Pordus  and  Armenia,  under  dynasties  descended  from  Persian 
princes ;  and  (c)  single  free  cities  like  Cos  and  Byzantium,  or 
leagues  of  such  cities,  like  that  under  the  leadership  of  Rhodes. 

Politically  in  many  ways  all  the  vast  district  bore  a  striking 
resemblance  to  Europe  of  two  centuries  ago :  there  was  a  like 
division  into  great  and  small  states,  ruled  by  dynasties  all 

1  See  an  enumeration  in  Mahaffy's  Alexander's  Empire,  90-92  B.C. 
225 


226  THE   GRAECO-ORIENTAL  WORLD.  [§248 

related  by  constant  intermarriage ;  there  was  a  common  civil- 
ization, and  a  recognition  of  common  interests  as  against  out- 
side barbarism  or  as  opposed  to  a  non-Hellenic  power  like 
Rome ;  and  there  were  similar  mutual  jealousies  and  conflict- 
ing policies.^ 

"I  wish  to  point  out  how  rich  in  political  instruction  of  every  kind, 
rich  perhaps  beyond  every  other  age  of  classical  times,  the  age  of  Polybios 
really  is.  The  Greek  world  of  that  day  was  made  up  of  an  assemblage  of 
states,  of  every  degree  of  power  and  of  every  form  of  political  constitu- 
tion. There  was  nothing  like  it  in  the  earlier  days  of  Greece  ;  there  was 
nothing  like  it  in  the  after  days  when  Rome  practically  became  the  world. 
But  the  Greek  world  of  those  days  gives  us  a  lively  image  of  the  political 
state  of  modern  Europe  for  some  ages  past." 

— Fbeeman,  Chief  Periods^  35. 

248.  Invasion  by  the  Gauls.  —  The  chief  event  of  general 
interest  in  this  period  was  the  great  Gallic  invasion  of  278  b.c. 
It  was  the  first  formidable  barbarian  attack  upon  the  Eastern 
world  since  the  Scythians  had  been  chastized  by  the  early 
Persian  kings  (§  72).  A  century  before,  however,  hordes  of 
these  same  Gauls  had  devastated  northern  Italy  and  sacked 
Rome  (§  330).  Now  (fortunately  not  until  the  ruinous  Wars 
of  the  Succession  were  over)  they  poured  into  exhausted 
Macedonia,  penetrated  into  Greece  as  far  as  Delphi,  and, 
after  horrible  ravages  there,  carried  havoc  into  Asia.  For 
a  long  period  every  great  sovereign  of  the  Greek  world  turned 
his  arms  upon  them,  and  they  were  finally  settled  as  peaceful 

1  The  teacher  and  advanced  student  will  note  the  resemblance  in  the  shift- 
ing alliances  and  the  wars  to  preserve  "  the  balance  of  power"  or  to  secure 
trade  advantages,  and  in  the  gradual  development  of  a  body  of  rules  of  war- 
fare and  diplomacy  that  make  a  beginning  of  International  Law,  and  in  the 
abandonment  of  plans  of  conquest  as  the  natural  end  of  war.  Ptolemy  III.  of 
Egypt  (§  251)  conquered  almost  as  widely  as  Alexander,  but  he  added  only 
insignificant  strips  of  territory  to  his  possessions  when  he  made  peace.  The 
likeness  to  modern  society,  too,  is  notable,  —  the  refinement  of  the  age  in  its 
excellences  and  its  vices,  the  erudition,  the  absence  of  great  creative  literature, 
the  increase  in  technique  and  in  criticism.  See  Mahaffy,  in  particular,  for 
these  phases.  Of  course  the  resemblance  must  not  be  pushed  too  far.  The  age 
was  vastly  inferior  to  that  of  modern  Europe. 


§249]  THE  POLITICAL   STORY.  227 

colonists  in  a  region  of  Asia  Minor,  called  Galatia  from  their 
name.  Perhaps  we  are  most  interested  in  noting  that  the 
Hellenic  patriotism  roused  by  the  attack  —  in  some  measure 
like  that  in  little  Hellas,  two  hundred  years  earlier,  by  the 
Persian  invasions  (§  176)  —  played  a  part  in  the  national  out- 
burst of  art  and  literature  which  followed  and  which  found  its 
themes  largely  in  this  conflict.     The  Dying  Gaul  and  the  Apollo 


The  Dying  Gaul,  incorrectly  called  The  Dying  Gladiator. 

Belvidere,  among  the  noblest  surviving  works  of  the  period, 
commemorate  incidents  in  the  struggle. 

249.  The  Decline  of  the  Hellenic  World  may  be  dated  from 
220  B.C.  At  that  time  the  thrones  of  the  three  larger  king- 
doms received  youthful  occupants  who  were  all  to  illustrate 
the  too  common  degeneracy  in  Oriental  royal  lines  a  few  gen- 
erations after  great  founders ;  and  at  almost  the  moment  of 
this  decay,  there  began  the  final  attack  from  without  upon  the 
Hellenic  East.  Sixty  years  before,  the  rising  Roman  power 
had  come  into  conflict  with  the  Greek  states  in  southern  Italy 


228  THE   GRAECO-ORIENTAL  WORLD.  [§250 

and  in  Sicily.  Complications  with  the  eastern  Greek  king- 
doms followed.  Then  came  the  Punic  wars  between  Rome 
and  Carthage.  The  Second  Punic  War  began  in  218  B.C.  and 
involved  all  the  great  Greek  powers,  one  by  one,  in  its  con- 
sequences (§§  383-389). 

11.    SOME  SINGLE  STATES  IN  OUTLINE. 

250.  Syria  was  the  largest  of  the  great  monarchies.  It  com- 
prised most  of  Alexander's  empire  in  Asia,  except  the  small 
states  in  Asia  Minor.  After  the  battle  of  Ipsus,  it  fell  to 
Seleucas,  whose  descendants  (Seleucidae)  ruled  it  to  the  Roman 
conquest.  They  excelled  all  other  successors  of  Alexander 
in  building  cities  and  extending  Greek  culture  over  distant 
regions.  Seleucus  alone  founded  seventy-five  cities.  About 
250  B.C.  Indian  princes  reconquered  the  Punjab,  and  the 
Parthians  arose  on  the  northeast  to  cut  off  the  frontier  Bactrian 
provinces  from  the  rest  of  the  Greek  world,  though  these  iso- 
lated districts  remained  under  independent  Greek  kings,  as 
their  coins  show,  some  two  centuries  more.  Thus  Syria  shrank 
up  to  the  area  of  the  ancient  Assyrian  Empire  —  the  Euphrates- 
Tigris  basin  and  old  Syria  proper  —  but  it  was  still,  in  common 
opinion,  the  greatest  world  power.  After  the  second  Punic 
War,  the  Syrian  monarch  gave  shelter  to  Hannibal,  the  defeated 
Carthaginian  leader,  and  so  incurred  Roman  hostility.  His 
power  was  shattered  at  Magnesia  in  the  year  190  B.C.,  but  the 
country  did  not  become  a  part  of  the  Roman  dominions  until 
63  B.C.  During  this  last,  and  weak,  period  of  Syrian  power, 
occurred  the  heroic  rebellion  of  the  Jews  under  the  Macca- 
bees ;  the  Jewish  state  secured  independence  and  maintained 
it  a  hundred  years,  until  the  East  fell  under  Roman  sway 
(162-163  B.C.). 

251.  Egypt  included  Cyprus,  and  exercised  a  vague  suzer- 
ainty over  many  coast  towns  of  Syria  and  Asia  Minor.  Im- 
mediately upon  Alexander's  death,  one  of  his  generals,  Ptolemy, 
chose  Egypt  for  his  province,  and  his  descendants  ruled  it 


§  253]  SYRIA  —  EGYPT  —  MACEDONIA.  229 

until  Cleopatra  yielded  to  Augustus  Caesar  (30  b.c),  though 
it  had  become  a  Eoman  protectorate  some  time  before.  The 
^rst  Ptolemies  were  wise,  energetic  sovereigns.  They  aimed 
to  make  Egypt  the  commercial  emporium  of  the  world,  and  to 
make  their  capital  Alexandria  the  world's  intellectual  center. 
Ptolemy  I.  established  a  great  naval  power,  improved  harbors, 
and  built  the  first  great  lighthouse.  Ptolemy  II.  (Philadel- 
phus)  restored  the  old  canal  of  Neco  from  the  Red  Sea  to  the 
Nile,  and  constructed  roads.  Ptolemy  III.,  in  war  with  Syria, 
carried  his  arms  to  Bactria,  and  on  his  return  secured  the 
circumnavigation  of  Arabia  which  Alexander  had  planned. 
The  even  more  remarkable  progress  in  intellectual  development 
under  these  kings  will  be  treated  below.  The  later  Ptolemies 
were  weaklings  or  infamous  monsters,  guilty  of  every  despic- 
able folly  and  crime ;  but  even  they  fostered  learning. 

252.  Macedonia  ceases  to  be  of  great  interest  after  the  death 
of  Alexander,  except  from  a  military  point  of  view.  Natu- 
rally it  was  the  first  part  of  the  empire  of  Alexander  to  come 
into  hostile  contact  with  Eome.  King  Philip  V.  joined  Car- 
thage in  the  second  Punic  War  a  little  before  the  year  200  b.c. 
(§  370).  A  series  of  struggles  resulted,  and  Macedonia,  with 
parts  of  Greece,  became  Roman  in  146  b.c. 

253.  Rhodes  and  Pergamum.  —  Among  the  many  smaller 
states,  two  deserve  special  mention.  Rhodes  had  been  a  mem- 
ber of  the  second  Athenian  confederacy,  but  had  become  inde- 
pendent before  the  Macedonian  era.  Later  on  she  headed  a 
maritime  confederacy  herself,  and  in  t^e  third  century  she 
became  the  leading  commercial  state  of  the  Mediterranean. 
Her  policy  was  one  of  peace  and  freedom  of  trade.  Pergamum 
was  a  small  Greek  kingdom  in  Asia  Minor,  which  the  genius 
and  liberality  of  its  rulers  (the  Attalids)  raised  to  prominence 
in  politics  and  art.  When  the  struggles  with  Rome  began, 
Pergamum  allied  itself  with  that  power,  and  long  remained  a 
favored  state  under  Roman  protection. 


230  THE   GRAECO-ORIENTAL   WORLD.  [§264 


III.    SOCIETY. 

254.  General  Culture.  —  From  280  to  150  b.c.  was  the  period 
of  the  chief  splendor  of  the  new,  widespread  Hellenism.  The 
age  was  a  great  and  fruitful  one.  Society  was  refined;  the 
position  of  woman  improved ;  private  fortunes  abounded,  and 
private  houses  possessed  works  of  art,  which,  in  earlier  times, 
would  have  been  found  only  in  palaces  or  temples.  For  the 
reverse  side,  there  was  corruption  in  high  places,  hungry  and 
threatening  mobs  at  the  base  of  society,  and,  in  general,  shal- 
lowness and  insincerity. 

Among  the  countless  cities,  all  homes  of  culture,  five  great 
intellectual  centers  appeared  —  Athens,  Alexandria,  Rhodes, 
Pergamos,  Antioch.  The  glory  of  Alexandria  extended  over  the 
whole  period,  which  is  sometimes  known  as  the  Alexandrian  age ; 
the  others  successively  held  a  special  preeminence  for  a  genera- 
tion. Athens,  however,  always  excelled  in  philosophy,  and 
Rhodes  in  oratory.    (Julius  Caesar  studied  oratory  at  Rhodes.) 

255.  Literature.  —  Some  new  forms  appeared  in  art  and  lit- 
erature: especially,  (a)  the  prose  romance,  a  story  of  love  and 
adventure,  the  forerunner  of  the  modern  novel ;  (b)  the  pas- 
toral idyllic  poetry  of  Theocritus,  which  was  to  influence  Ver- 
gil and  Tennyson ;  and  (c)  personal  memoirs.  These  make  a 
part  of  the  debt  we  owe  to  this  many-sided  Alexandrian  age. 
The  old  Attic  comedy,  too,  became  the  New  Comedy  of  Menan- 
der  and  his  followers,  devoted  to  satirizing  gently  the  life  and 
manners  of  the  time. 

In  general,  no  doubt,  the  tendency  in  literature  was  toward 
critical  scholarship  rather  than  toward  great  and  fresh  crea- 
tion. Floods  of  books  appeared,  more  notable  for  style  than 
matter.  Erudition  and  technique  are  the  key  words  to  the 
age.  Treatises  on  literary  criticism  abounded ;  the  science  of 
grammar  was  developed;  and  poets  prided  themselves  upon 
writing  all  kinds  of  verse  equally  well.  In  many  of  its  faults, 
as  in  some  of  its  virtues,  the  time  strikingly  resembles  our  own. 


§256]  SOCIETY.  231 

256.  Painting  and  Sculpture.  —  Painting  gained  prominence  at 
the  expense  of  calmer,  more  monumental  sculpture  —  as  befitted 
a  complex  society  that  loved  great  passions  and  exciting  mo- 
ments. Zeuxis,  Parrhasius,  and  Apelles  are  the  three  great 
names  connected  with  this  art.  These  men  seem  to  have 
carried  realistic  painting  to  great  perfection.     According  to  the 


Venus  of  Melos  (Milo).  —  A  statue  uow  in  the  Louvre. 

stories,  Zeuxis  painted  a  cluster  of  grapes  so  that  birds  pecked 
at  them,  while  Apelles  painted  a  horse  so  that  real  horses 
neighed  at  the  sight. 

Despite  the  attention  given  to  painting,  Greek  sculpture 
produced  some  of  its  greatest  work  in  this  period.  Multitudes 
of  splendid  statues  were  created  —  so  abundantly,  indeed,  that 
even  the  names  of  the  artists  are  not  preserved.     Among  the 


232 


THE   GRAECO-ORIENTAL  WORLD. 


[§257 


famous  pieces  that  survive,  besides  the  Dying  Gavl  and  the 
Apollo  Belvidere  mentioned  in  §248,  are  the  Venus  of  Milo 
(Melos)  and  the  Laocoon  group. 


Laocoon.  —  Now  in  the  Vatican. 


257.  Philosophy  separates  itself  finally  from  science,  and 
turns  to  theories  of  human  conduct.  It  also  leaves  the  closet 
for  the  street;  it  ceases  to  be  the  province  of  the  secluded 
thinker,  and  seeks  converts  and  proselytes.  The  period  of  the 
Wars  of  the  Succession  saw  two  new  philosophical  systems 


§267]  SOCIETY.  233 

born  —  Epicureanism  and  Stoicism.  These  were  both  essen- 
tially practical ;  they  dwelt  mainly  upon  ethics  and  the  laws 
of  moral  action,  and  sought  human  happiness  and  virtue,  not 
knowledge. 

Epicurus  was  an  Athenian  citizen.  He  taught  that  every 
man  must  pursue  happiness  as  an  end,  but  he  held  that  the 
most  and  the  highest  pleasure  was  to  be  obtained  not  by  grati- 
fication of  lower  appetites,  but  by  a  wise  choice  of  the  refined 
pleasures  of  the  intellect  and  of  friendship.  He  advised  tem- 
perance and  virtue  as  means  to  happiness;  and  he  himself 
lived  an  abstemious  life,  saying  that  with  a  crust  of  bread  and 
a  cup  of  cold  water  he  could  rival  Zeus  in  happiness.  But, 
under  cover  of  his  theories,  some  of  his  followers  taught  and 
practiced  a  grossness  which  Epicurus  himself  would  have 
earnestly  condemned.  Epicureanism  produced  some  lovable 
characters,  but  no  exalted  ones.^  On  the  speculative  side,  the 
Epicureans  denied  the  supernatural  altogether,  and  held  death 
the  end  of  all  things.  Contemporary  with  Epicurus,  Zeno  the 
Stoic  taught  at  Athens.  His  followers  made  virtue,  not  happi- 
ness, the  end  of  life.  If  happiness  were  to  come  at  all,  it 
would  come  as  a  result,  not  as  an  end.  They  placed  emphasis 
upon  the  dignity  of  human  nature.  The  wise  man,  they  held, 
should  be  superior  to  all  the  accidents  of  fortune.  They  be- 
lieved in  the  gods  as  manifestations  of  one  Divine  Providence 
that  ordered  all  things  well.  The  noblest  characters  of  the 
Greek  and  Roman  world  from  this  time  belonged  to  this  sect. 
Stoicism  was  inclined,  however,  to  ignore  the  gentler  and  kind- 
lier side  of  human  life ;  and  with  weak  and  bitter  natures  it 
merged  into  the  philosophy  of  the  Cynics,  of  whom  Diogenes 
with  his  tub  and  lantern  is  the  great  example.^ 

Both  Stoics  and  Epicureans  held  to  a  wide  brotherhood  of 
man.  Philosophy,  like  Greek  civilization,  became  cosmopoli- 
tan.    It  took  the  place  of  religion  as  a  real  guide  to  life,  and 

1  For  the  philosophy  at  its  best,  read  "Walter  Pater's  Marius  the  Epicurean. 
Its  noblest  speculation  is  found  in  Lucretius'  poetry, 

2  Special  report :  the  stories  of  Diogenes. 


234  THE   GRAECO-ORIENTAL   WORLD.  [§258 

the  great  body  of  philosophers  were  the  clergy  of  the  next  few 
centuries  much  more  truly  than  were  the  various  priesthoods 
of  the  temples. 

258.  Libraries  and  Museums  (**  Universities  ")•  —  Two  new 
institutions  appeared,  which,  when  combined  as  at  Alexandria, 
made  the  forerunner  of  the  modern  university.  The  union  of 
a  body  of  teachers  and  learners  into  a  corporation,  with  perma- 
nent endowment  and  legal  succession,  began  at  this  time  in 
Athens  and  Alexandria,  and  the  idea  has  never  since  died  out 
of  the  world.  Plato  had  bequeathed  his  gardens  at  Athens, 
with  other  property,  to  his  followers,  on  the  basis  of  a  worship 
of  the  Muses  (since  the  Athenian  law  could  not  recognize 
property  rights  in.  a  club  unless  it  avowed  some  religious 
purpose).  This  was  the  first  endowed  academy.  The  model 
and  name  were  used  a  little  later  by  the  first  and  second 
Ptolemies  at  Alexandria  in  their  Museum.  Here  was  founded 
a  great  library  of  over  half  a  million  volumes  (manuscripts), 
with  scribes  to  make  careful  editions  and  copies  of  them ; 
here  also  were  established  observatories  and  zoological  and 
botanical  gardens,  with  collections  of  rare  plants  and  animals 
from  distant  parts  of  the  world.  The  librarians  and  other 
scholars  who  were  gathered  about  the  institution  by  the  Ptole- 
mies corresponded  in  some  measure  to  the  faculty  of  a  univer- 
sity, and  devoted  their  lives  to  a  search  for  knowledge  and 
to  teaching. 

"The  external  appearance  was  that  of  a  group  of  buildings  which 
served  a  common  purpose—  temple  of  the  Muses,  library,  porticoes, 
dwellings,  and  a  hall  for  meals,  which  were  taken  together.  The  inmates 
were  a  community  of  scholars  and  poets,  on  whom  the  king  bestowed  the 
honor  and  privilege  of  being  allowed  to  work  at  his  expense  with  all 
imaginable  assistance  ready  to  hand.  It  was  a  foundation  which  had 
something  of  the  Institute  of  France,  and  something  of  the  Colleges  at 
Oxford.  The  managing  board  was  composed  of  priests,  but  the  most 
influential  post  was  that  of  librarian."  —  Holm,  IV.  307. 

One  enterprise,  of  incalculable  benefit  to  the  later  world,  may  illus- 
trate the  zeal  of  the  Ptolemies  in  regard  to  collecting  and  translating 
texts.    Alexandria  had  many  Jews  in  its  population,  but  they  were  com- 


269] 


SOCIETY. 


235 


ing  to  use  the  Greek  language.  Philadelphus,  for  their  benefit,  had  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures  translated  into  Greek,  the  famous  Septuagint  transla- 
tion, so  called  from  the  tradition  that  it  was  the  work  of  seventy  scholars. 

259.  Science.  —  As  compared  with  all  previous  time,  science 
made  great  strides.  Medicine,  surgery,  botany,  and  mechanics 
first  appear  as  real  sciences.  Archimedes  of  Syracuse  discov- 
ered the  principle  of  the  lever,  and  of  specific  gravity,  and 
constructed  burning  mirrors  and  new  hurling  engines  that 
made  effective  siege  artillery.     Euclid  at  Alexandria  produced 


the  geometry  which,  with  little  modification,  is  still  taught 
in  our  schools.  Eratosthenes  (born  276  b.c),  the  librarian  at 
Alexandria,  wrote  a  systematic  treatise  on  geography,  invented 
delicate  astronomical  instruments,  and  devised  the  present 
method  of  measuring  the  circumference  of  the  earth  —  with 
results  nearly  accurate.  A  little  later,  Aristarchus  taught  that 
the  earth  moved  round  the  sun;  and  Hipparchus  calculated 
eclipses,  catalogued  the  stars,  and  wrote  scientific  treatises  on 
astronomy;  indeed,  he  is  regarded  as  the  founder  of  mathe- 
matical astronomy  and  of  plane  and  spherical  trigonometry. 
Aristotle  (§  §  207,  244  b)  had  already  given  all  the  proofs  of 


236  THE   GRAECO-ORIENTAL  WORLD.  [§269 

the  sphericity  of  the  earth  that  are  common  in  our  text-books 
now  (except  that  of  actual  circumnavigation),  and  had  asserted 
the  probability  that  men  could  reach  Asia  by  sailing  west  from 
Europe. 

References  for  Further  Reading. — Mahaffy's  Alexander's  Em- 
pire, Greek  Life  and  Thought,  and  Empire  of  the  Ptolemies ;  Freeman's 
Periods  of  European  History  (Lecture  L)  ;  Grote,  XII.  274-331  ;  Gard- 
ner's New  Chapters,  ch.  xv.  ;  Thirlwall,  bks.  vii.  and  viii.  ;  Holm,  IV. 
Draper's  Intellectual  Development  of  Europe  (I.  187-204)  has  a  glowing 
account  of  the  Alexandrian  Museum  and  of  Alexandrian  science. 

Plutarch's  Lives  (Eumenes,  Demetrius,  Pyrrhus)  for  this  period  give 
the  young  reader  a  confused  picture,  but  they  are  of  much  greater  histori- 
cal value  than  the  earlier  Lives,  and  quite  as  full  of  charm. 

Exercise.  —  Review  by  "  catchwords." 


CHAPTER  III. 

GREECE— FROM  ALEXANDER   TO   ROME. 

I.    THE   FEDERAL   CHARACTER   OF   THE   PERIOD. 

260.  The  Political  Situation.  —  During  the  ruinous  Wars  of 
the  Succession,  Greece  was  the  battle  ground  for  Egypt, 
Syria,  and  Macedonia.  Those  struggles  left  the  land  for  a  time 
in  vassalage  to  Macedonia,  and  that  country  tried  to  secure  her 
rule  by  garrisons  in  important  places  or  by  local  tyrants  sub- 
servient to  her.  But,  almost  at  once,  a  new  champion  of  Hel- 
lenic liberty  appeared  in  a  spot  hitherto  obscure.  A  league  of 
small  Achaean  towns  grew  into  a  formidable  power,  gallantly 
freed  most  of  historic  Greece,  brought  much  of  it  into  its  fed- 
eral union  on  equal  terms,  and  for  a  glorious  half-century 
maintained  Greek  freedom  successfully. 

The  story  offers  curious  resemblances  and  contrasts  to  the 
period  of  Athenian  leadership  just  two  hundred  years  earlier. 
Greece  could  no  longer  hope  to  become  one  of  the  great  physi- 
cal powers ;  we  miss  the  intellectual  brilliancy,  too,  of  the  fifth 
century ;  but  the  epoch  affords  even  more  instructive  political 
lessons  —  especially  to  Americans,  interested,  as  we  are,  in  fed- 
eral institutions.^ 

261.  Earlier  and  Minor  Federations.  —  In  early  centuries  the 
more  backward  and  tribal  parts  of  Greece  had  offered  many 
examples  of  confederation,  as  in  the  cases  of  the  Phocians,  Lo- 
crians,  Acarnanians,  and  Epirots.  In  city  Greece,  however,  no 
such  league  had  flourished.  The  ancient  Boeotian  confederacy 
sank  under  the  rule  of  a  predominant  city ;  the  later  attempts 

1  Read  Freeman,  Federal  Government,  I.  219-229,  for  the  character  and 
importance  of  Greek  history  in  this  period. 

237 


238  GREECE— FROM  ALEXANDER  TO   ROME.  [§  262 

of  Athens  and  Olynthus  to  apply  the  federal  principle  to  nu- 
merous city  states  had  failed,  the  one  from  internal  causes,  the 
other  from  Spartan  interference  (§  228).  Now,  two  of  the  older 
confederacies  —  Aetolia  and  Achaea  —  stepped  forth  as  cham- 
pions of  Hellas,  and  the  federal  organization  gained  a  promi- 
nence wholly  new  in  history. 

262.  The  Aetolian  League  seems  to  have  been  originally  a 
loose  union  of  mountain  cantons  for  defence.  The  Wars  of 
the  Succession,  however,  made  the  Aetolians  famous  as  the  bold- 
est soldiers  of  fortune  in  the  Hellenic  world ;  and  this  repute, 
together  with  the  wealth  brought  home  by  the  thousands  of 
such  adventurers,  led  to  a  more  aggressive  policy  on  the  part 
of  the  league.  The  people  remained,  on  the  whole,  rude  moun- 
taineers, "  brave,  boastful,  rapacious,  and  utterly  reckless  of  the 
rights  of  others."  They  did  play  a  part  in  saving  southern 
Greece  from  the  invading  Gauls  (§  248),  but  their  confeder- 
acy became  more  and  more  an  organization  for  lawless  plun- 
der. Their  original  constitution  seems  to  have  been  much  like 
the  Achaean  (which,  however,  we  know  more  in  detail) ;  but 
as  they  extended  their  authority  over  distant  cities  by  con- 
quest or  by  threats  of  blackmail,  they  did  not  incorporate 
these  new  elements  into  the  union  on  equal  terms,  as  the 
great  Achaean  League  was  to  do  with  its  new  members.  The 
Aetolian  Union,  therefore,  soon  comes  to  be  less  valuable  as 
an  example  of  federal  government  than  is  its  great  rival. 

II.    THE  ACHAEAN  LEAGUE. 

263.  Origin.  —  The  people  of  Achaea  were  unwarlike,  and 
not  particularly  enterprising  or  intellectual.  They  gave  no  great 
name  to  literature  or  art,  nor  did  they  even  furnish  great  states- 
men, for  all  the  heroes  of  the  league  were  to  come  from  out- 
side old  Achaea.  But,  still,  the  Achaean  League  is  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  federations  in  history  before  the  adoption  of 
the  present  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

A  federal  union  of  Achaean  townships  existed  as  early  as 


§  264]  THE  ACHAEAN  LEAGUE.  239 

the  Persian  wars,  as  a  common  coinage  of  that  time  proves. 
Under  the  Macedonian  kings  the  league  was  destroyed,  and 
tyrants  were  set  up  in  several  of  the  ten  Achaean  cities.  But, 
about  280  b.c,  four  small  towns  revived  the  ancient  confeder- 
acy. Neighboring  tyrants  were  driven  out;  indeed,  Iseas  of 
Ceryneia  voluntarily  resigned  his  tyranny,  and  brought  his 
city  into  the  league.  The  union  swiftly  absorbed  all  Achaea. 
The  ruin  that  followed  the  Gallic  invasion  in  the  north  seems  to 
have  prevented  Macedonian  interference  until  the  federation 
was  securely  established. 

264.  The  Constitution.  —  During  this  period  the  constitution 
took  form.  The  supreme  authority  of  the  league  was  vested  in 
a  federal,  congress.  This  was  not  a  representative  body,  but  a 
primary  assembly,  or  mass  meeting,  of  all  citizens  of  the  league 
who  chose  to  attend.  To  prevent  the  city  where  the  meeting 
was  held  from  outweighing  the  others,  each  city  was  given  only 
one  vote.^  The  Assembly  was  held  twice  a  year,  for  only  three 
days  at  a  time,  and  in  a  small  place,  so  that  a  great  capital 
should  not  overshadow  the  rest  of  the  league.  It  chose  yearly 
a  General  (or  president),  with  various  subordinate  officers,  a 
Council  of  Ten,  and  a  Senate,  The  same  general  could  not  be 
chosen  two  years  in  succession. 

•This  government  raised  federal  taxes  and  armies,  and  repre- 
sented Achaea  in  all  foreign  relations.  Each  city  remained  a 
distinct  state,  with  full  control  over  all  its  internal  matters  — 
with  its  own  Assembly,  Council,  and  Generals ;  but  no  city  of 
itself  could  make  peace  or  war,  enter  into  alliances,  or  send 
ambassadors  to  another  state.  That  is,  the  Achaean  League 
was  a  true  federation,  and  not  a  mere  alliance. 

In  theory  the  constitution  was  extremely  democratic;  in 
practice  it  proved  otherwise.  Men  attended  the  Assembly  at 
their  own  expense;    any  Achaean  might  come,  but  only  the 

1  That  is,  ten  or  twelve  men  from  a  distant  town  cast  the  vote  of  that  city, 
and  counted  just  as  much  as  several  hundred  from  a  city  nearer  the  place  of 
meeting.    Compare  the  voting  by  "  tribes  "  in  the  Athenian  Assembly  (§  134). 


240  GREECE  — FROM  ALEXANDER   TO  ROME.  [§264 

wealthy  could  afford  to  do  so  habitually.  Then,  since  the  meet- 
ings were  necessarily  so  few  and  brief,  great  authority  had  to 
be  left  in  the  intervals  to  the  general  and  council.  Any 
Achaean  was  eligible  to  these  offices ;  but  as  they  were  unsala- 
ried, poor  men  could  hardly  afford  to  take  them,  and,  in  any 
case,  could  not  get  them  from  the  wealthy  class  that  dom- 
inated the  Assembly.  Thus  a  decidedly  aristocratic  character 
resulted  from  applying  to  a  large  territory  the  Greek  system  of 
a  primary  assembly,  suited  only  to  single  cities.  A  primary 
assembly  made  the  city  of  Athens  a  perfect  democracy;  the 
same  institution  made  Achaea  intensely  aristocratic. 

The  constitution,  it  is  plain,  avoided  several  dangers  and 
evils  common  in  early  attempts  at  federation.  Its  two  weak- 
nesses were :  (a)  that  it  made  no  use  of  the  representative  sys- 
tem, which  no  doubt  would  have  seemed  to  the  Achaeans  less 
democratic,  but  which  in  practice  would  have  enabled  a  larger 
part  of  the  citizens  to  have  a  voice  in  the  government;  and 
(h)  that  all  cities,  great  or  small,  had  the  same  vote.  This  last 
did  not  matter  so  much  perhaps  at  first,  for  the  little  Achaean 
towns  did  not  differ  materially  in  size ;  but  it  became  a  mani- 
fest injustice,  and  therefore  an  element  of  weakness,  when  the 
union  came  later  to  contain  some  of  the  most  powerful  cities 
in  Greece.  However,  this  feature  was  almost  universal  in  early 
confederacies  that  did  not  change  into  consolidated  empires, 
and  it  was  the  principle  of  the  American  Union  until  1789. 

The  one  exception  of  note  was  the  Lycian  confederacy  in  Asia  Minor. 
The  Lycians  were  not  Greeks,  apparently  ;  but  they  had  taken  on  some 
Greek  culture,  and  their  federal  union  was  an  advance  even  upon  the 
Achaean,  though  it  was  absorbed  by  Rome  before  it  played  an  important 
part  in  history.  In  its  Assembly,  the  vote  was  taken  by  cities,  but  the 
cities  were  divided  into  three  classes :  the  largest  had  three  votes  each,  the 
next  class  two  each,  and  the  smallest  only  one.  This  was  the  nearest 
approach  in  ancient  history  to  a  federation  wherein  the  states  should  have 
weight  according  to  their  importance.  Even  the  Lycians  had  no  repre- 
sentative assemblies,  and,  at  the  league  gathering,  the  numerical  value  of 
the  vote  of  a  city  depended,  of  course,  not  upon  the  size  of  its  contingent 
at  that  meeting  but  upon  the  relative  place  assigned  it  by  the  constitution. 


§265]  THE  ACHAEAN  LEAGUE.  241 

265.  Expansion  beyond  Achaea.  —  The  power  vested  in  the 
general  makes  the  history  of  the  league  the  biography  of  a 
few  great  men.  The  most  remarkable  of  these  leaders  was 
Aratus^  of  Sicyon,  who  now  entered  upon  the  stage  to  extend 
the  union  far  beyond  Achaea.  As  a  youth  of  twenty  he  had 
returned  from  exile  to  free  his  native  city  from  a  bloody  and 
despicable  tyranny  (251  B.C.).  The  daring  venture  was  bril- 
liantly successful,  but  it  aroused  the  enmity  of  Macedon ;  and 
to  preserve  the  freedom  so  nobly  won,  Aratus  brought  Sicyon 
into  the  Achaean  federation.  Five  years  later  he  was  first 
elected  general  of  the  league,  and  he  held  that  office  each  al- 
ternate year  (as  often  as  the  constitution  permitted)  from  this 
time  until  his  death,  thirty-two  years  later,  while  the  generals 
in  the  odd  years  were  commonly  his  partisans. 

Aratus  hated  tyrants  and  longed  for  a  free  and  united  Greece. 
He  aimed  at  a  noble  end,  but  did  not  refuse  base  means.  He 
was  personally  incorruptible,  and  he  lavished  his  own  vast 
wealth  for  the  union :  but  he  was  jealous  of  other  leaders ;  he 
betrayed  to  death  on  the  field  of  battle  the  noblest  hero  of  the 
league ;  and  finally,  to  maintain  his  supremacy,  he  called  in 
Macedonia,  and  himself  undid  all  his  work.  With  abounding 
daring  in  a  dashing  project,  as  he  many  times  showed,  he  lacked 
nerve  to  command  in  battle ;  he  frequently  showed  cowardice, 
and  he  never  won  a  real  victory  in  the  field ;  but,  despite  his 
many  defeats,  his  persuasive  power  and  his  merits  kept  him 
the  confidence  of  the  union  to  the  end  of  a  long  public  life. 

In  his  second  generalship,  Aratus  freed  Corinth  from  her 
Macedonian  tyrant  by  a  desperate  night  attack  upon  the  garri- 
son of  the  citadel.  That  powerful  city  then  entered  the  union. 
So  did  Megara,  which  itself  drove  out  its  Macedonian  garrison. 
The  league  now  commanded  the  Isthmus,  and  was  safe  from 
^  attack  by  Macedonia.  Then  several  cities  in  Arcadia  joined, 
and  in  234  b.c.  Megalopolis  was  added  —  at  this  time  one  of  the 

1  Aratus  is  the  first  statesman  known  to  us  from  his  own  memoirs.  That 
work  itself  no  longer  exists,  but  Plutarch  drew  upon  it  for  his  Life,  as  did 
Polybius  for  his  history. 


242  GREECE— FROM  ALEXANDER  TO  ROME.  [§266 

leading  cities  in  Greece.  Some  years  earlier  its  tyranny  had 
been  seized  by  Lydiadas,  a  gallant  youth  animated  by  enthu- 
siasm for  beneficent  autocratic  reform.^  The  growth  of  the 
Achaean  League  opened  a  nobler  way ;  Lydiadas  resigned  his 
tyranny,  and  as  a  private  citizen  brought  the  Great  City  into 
the  union.  This  made  him  a  candidate  for  popular  favor,  and 
Aratus  became  his  bitter  foe.  The  new  leader  was  the  more 
lovable  and  heroic  figure  —  generous  and  ardent,  a  soldier  as 
well  as  a  statesman.  He  several  times  became  general  of  the 
league,  but  even  in  office  he  was  often  thwarted  by  the  dis- 
graceful trickery  of  the  older  man. 

For  many  years  Aratus  had  aimed  to  free  Athens  and  Argos 
—  sometimes  by  heroic  endeavors,  sometimes  by  assassination 
and  poison.  In  229  B.C.  he  succeeded.  He  bought  the  with- 
drawal of  Macedonian  troops  from  the  Peiraeus,  and  Athens 
became  an  ally,  though  not  a  member  of  the  league.^  The 
tyrant  of  Argos  was  persuaded  or  frightened  into  following  the 
example  of  Lydiadas,  —  as  indeed  had  happened  meanwhile  in 
many  smaller  cities,  —  and  Argos  joined  the  confederacy.  The 
league  now  was  the  commanding  power  in  Hellas.  It  included 
all  Peloponnesus  except  Sparta  and  Elis.  Moreover,  all  Greece 
south  of  Thermopylae  had  become  free,  —  largely  through  the 
influence  of  the  confederacy,  —  and  most  of  these  states  also 
had  entered  into  friendly  alliance  with  it. 

266.  The  Conflict  with  Sparta ;  Social  Reforms  in  Sparta.  — 
But  now  came  a  conflict  with  Sparta.  The  struggle  was  con- 
nected with  a  great  reform  within  that  ancient  city.  The  forms 
of  the  Lycurgan  constitution  had  survived  through  many  cen- 
turies, but  at  this  time  Sparta  had  only  seven  hundred  full 
citizens.  This  condition  brought  about  a  violent  agitation  for 
social  reform,  the  beginning  of  which  indeed  was  noticeable  one 

1  This  was  true  of  several  tyrants  in  this  age,  and  it  was  due  no  doubt  in 
part  to  the  new  respect  for  monarchy  since  Alexander's  time,  and  in  part  to 
new  theories  of  government  taught  by  the  philosophers. 

2  The  old  historic  cities,  Athens  and  Sparta,  could  not  be  brought  to  look 
favorably  upon  such  a  union. 


§266]  THE   ACHAEAN  LEAGUE.  243 

hundred  and  fifty  years  before  (§  221).  About  the  year  243 
B.C.  AgiSf  one  of  the  kings,  set  himself  to  do  again  what  Lycur- 
gus  had  done  in  legend.  Agis  was  a  youthful  hero,  full  of 
noble  daring  and  pure  enthusiasm.  He  gave  his  own  prop- 
erty to  the  state  and  persuaded  his  relatives  and  friends  to 
do  the  like.  He  planned  to  abolish  all  debts  and  to  divide 
the  land  among  forty-five  hundred  Spartans  and  fifteen  thou- 
sand Perioeci  —  thus  reestablishing  the  state  upon  a  broad  and 
democratic  basis.  He  refused  to  use  violence,  and  sought  his 
ends  by  constitutional  means  only;  but  the  disciplined  con- 
servative party  rose  in  fierce  opposition  and,  by  order  of  the 
ephors,  Agis  was  seized,  with  his  noble  mother  and  grand- 
mother, and  murdered  in  prison,  —  "the  purest  and  noblest 
spirit,"  says  Freeman,  "that  ever  perished  through  deeming 
others  as  pure  and  noble  as  himself." 

But  the  ideals  of  the  martyr  lived  on.  His  wife  was  forced 
to  marry  Cleomenes,  son  of  the  other  king ;  and  from  her  this 
prince  adopted  the  hopes  of  Agis.  Cleomenes  had  less  of 
high  sensitiveness  and  stainless  honor,  but  he  is  a  grand 
and  colossal  figure.  He  bided  his  time ;  and  then,  when  the 
ephors  were  planning  to  use  force  against  him,  he  struck  first. 
He  became  king  in  236  b.c.  Aratus  had  led  the  Achaean 
League  into  war  with  Sparta  in  order  to  consolidate  the  Pelo- 
ponnesus ;  but  the  military  genius  of  the  young  king  made 
even  old,  enfeebled  Sparta  a  match  for  the  league  under  the 
miserable  leadership  of  its  general.  Cleomenes  won  two  great 
victories,-^  Then,  the  league  being  helpless  for  the  moment,  he 
used  his  popularity  to  effect  reform  at  home.  The  oligarchs 
were  plotting  against  him,  but  he  was  enthusiastically  sup- 
ported by  the  disfranchised  multitudes.  Leaving  his  Spartan 
troops  at  a  distance,  he  hurried  to  the  city  by  forced  marches 
with  some  chosen  followers,  seized  and  slew  the  ephors,  and 
proclaimed  a  new  constitution,  which  embodied  the  economic 

1  In  one  of  these  battles  Aratus  held  back  the  Achaean  phalanx,  through 
timidity  or  jealousy,  while  Lydiadas,  heading  a  gallant  charge,  was  over- 
powered by  numbers  and  slain. 


244  GREECE  — FROM   ALEXANDER   TO   ROME.  [§267 

designs  of  Agis  and  whicli  virtually  placed  all  political  power 
in  the  hands  of  the  king. 

267.  Macedonian  Supremacy  Restored.  —  Cleomenes  designed 
to  make  this  new  Sparta  the  head  of  the  Peloponnesus.  He 
and  Aratus  each  desired  a  free  united  Greece,  but  under  differ- 
ent leadership.  Moreover  Sparta  now  stood  forth  the  advocate 
of  socialism,  and  so  was  particularly  hateful  and  dangerous 
to  the  aristocratic  government  of  the  league.  The  struggle 
between  the  two  powers  was  renewed  with  fresh  bitterness. 
Cleomenes  won  more  victories,  and  then,  with  the  league  at 
his  feet,  he  offered  generous  terms.  He  demanded  that  Sparta 
enter  the  union  as  virtual  leader.  This  would  have  altered 
the  character  of  the  confederacy,  but  it  would  have  created 
the  greatest  power  ever  seen  in  Greece,  and,  for  the  time,  it 
would  have  insured  a  free  Hellas.  The  Achaeans  were  gener- 
ally in  favor  of  accepting  the  proposal;  but  Aratus  —  jealous 
of  Cleomenes  and  fearful  of  social  reform  —  broke  off  the 
negotiations  by  underhanded  methods,  and  bought  the  aid  of 
Macedon  by  betraying  Corinth,  a  free  member  of  the  league 
and  the  city  connected  with  his  own  most  glorious  exploit. 
As  a  result,  the  federation  became  a  protectorate  of  Mace- 
donia, holding  no  relations  with  foreign  states  except  through 
that  power ;  and  the  war  became  a  struggle  for  Greek  freedom, 
waged  by  Sparta  under  her  hero-king  against  the  overwhelm- 
ing power  of  Macedon  assisted  by  the  confederacy  as  a  vassal 
state. 

The  date  (222  b.c.)  coincides  with  the  general  decline  of 
Hellenic  power  in  the  world  (§  249).  For  a  while,  Sparta 
showed  surprising  vigor,  and  Cleomenes  was  marvelously  suc- 
cessful. The  league  indeed  dwindled  to  a  handful  of  petty 
cities.  But  in  the  end  Macedonia  prevailed.  Cleomenes  fled 
to  Egypt,  to  die  in  exile ;  and  Sparta  opened  her  gates  for  the 
first  time  to  a  conquering  army.  The  league  was  restored  to 
nearly  its  full  extent,  but  its  glory  was  gone.  It  still  served  a 
useful  purpose  in  maintaining  internal  peace  and  order  over  a 


§268]  THE   ACHAEAN  LEAGUE.  245 

large  part  of  Peloponnesus,  but  it  was  no  longer  a  champion 
of  a  free  Hellas. 

268.  The  Final  Decline  of  the  League.  —  A  war  followed  be- 
tween Achaea  and  Aetolia.  This  soon  became  a  struggle 
between  Macedonia  and  her  vassals  on  the  one  side,  and 
Aetolia  aided  by  Rome  on  the  other;  for  as  Achaea  had 
called  in  Macedon  against  Sparta,  so  now  Aetolia  called  in 
Rome  against  Achaea  and  Macedonia,  —  and  Greek  history 
is  closed. 

Some  gleams  of  glory  shine  out  at  the  last  in  the  career  of 
Philopoemen  of  Megalopolis,  the  greatest  general  the  Achaean 
League  ever  produced,  and  one  of  the  noblest  characters  in 
history ;  but  the  doom  of  Achaea  was  already  sealed.  "  Philo- 
poemen," says  Freeman,  "  was  one  of  the  heroes  who  struggle 
against  fate,  and  who  are  allowed  to  do  no  more  than  to  stave 
off  a  destruction  which  it  is  beyond  their  power  to  avert." 
The  sentence  may  stand  not  unfittingly  for  the  epitaph  of  the 
great  league  itself. 

References  for  Further  Study.  —  Sources  :  YlntSLrch.'' s  Aratus,Agis, 
Cleomenes,  Philopoemen  ;  Polybius'  History  (index  for  Achaean  and  Aeto- 
lian  leagues;  extracts  in  Fling's  Studies^  No.  5).  Modem  authorities: 
Thirlwall,  bk.  viii. ;  Freeman's  Federal  Government ;  Holm,  IV. 

Special  Reports.  —  1.  Compare  Plutarch  and  Polybius  on  the  reforms 
at  Sparta.  2.  The  life  of  Agis.  3.  Cleomenes  in  exile.  4.  Philopoe- 
men. 

Class  Exercise.  —  Review,  with  attention  to  progressive  development, 
the  various  confederacies,  — Peloponnesian,  Delian,  Chalcidic,  Achaean. 


REVIEW  EXERCISES   ON  PARTS   11.  AND  IIL 

A.    Fact  Drills  on  Greek  History. 

1.  The  class  should  form  a  Table  of  Dates  gradually  as  the  critical 
points  are  reached,  and  should  then  drill  upon  it  until  it  says  itself  as  the 
alphabet  does.     The  following  dates  are  enough  for  this  kind  of  drill  in 


246  GREECE— FROM  ALEXANDER  TO   ROME.  [§268 

Greek  history.   The  table  should  be  filled  out  as  is  done  for  the  first  two 
dates. 

776  B.C.     First  Olympiad  (?)  338  b.c. 

490    "      Marathon  222   " 

405    "  146   " 

371    " 

2.  List  and  name  fifteen  battles  in  chronological  order,  between  776  and 
146  B.C.,  stating  for  each  the  parties,  leaders,  result,  and  importance. 
{Such  tables  also  should  be  made  by  degrees  as  the  events  are  reached.) 

3.  Explain  concisely  the  following  terms  or  names:  Olympiads, 
Ephors,  Olynthiac  Confederacy,  Mycenaean  Culture,  Olympian  Religion, 
Amphictyonies,  Sappho.     {Let  the  class  extend  the  list  several  fold.) 

B.    Topical  Reviews. 

This  is  a  good  point  at  which  to  review  certain  "  culture  topics,"  —  i.e. 
Greek  philosophy,  literature,  art,  religion, — tracing  each  separately  from 
the  dawn  of  history.  The  chief  divisions  of  Greek  history  should  be 
fixed  clearly  in  the  mind :  for  this  the  Table  of  Contents  is  a  sufficient 
guide. 


PART   IV. 

ROME. 

The  center  of  our  studies,  the  goal  of  our  thoughts,  the  point  to  which 
all  paths  lead  and  the  point  from  which  all  paths  start  again,  is  to  be 
found  in  Borne  and  her  abiding  power.^  —  Freeman. 


CHAPTER   I. 

INTRODUCTORY   SURVEY. 

I.    THE   PLACE   OF   ROME   IN   HISTORY. 

269.  The  Exponent  of  Empire  and  Law.  —  Rome  stands  for 
organization  and  law,  as  Greece  for  culture.  During  the  later 
period  of  the  history  of  Greece  there  had  been  growing  up  in 
the  peninsula  to  the  west  a  power  that  was  to  take  over,  extend, 
and  supplement  her  work.  The  peculiar  function  of  Rome 
was  to  make  empire  ^nd  to  rule  it.  This  the  Romans  them- 
selves recognized;  their  poet  Vergil  wrote:  — 

"Others,  I  grant,  indeed,  shall  with  more  delicacy  mold  the  breath- 
ing brass  ;  from  marble  draw  the  features  to  the  life  ;  plead  causes  better  ; 
describe  with  a  rod  the  courses  of  the  heavens,  and  explain  the  rising 
stars.  To  rule  the  nations  with  imperial  sway  be  thy  care,  O  Romans. 
These  shall  be  thy  arts  :  to  impose  terms  of  peace,  to  spare  the  humbled, 
and  to  crush  the  proud." 

The  history  of  Rome  is  the  history  of  the  growth  of  a  vil- 
lage community  into  a  city  state ;  the  growth  of  that  city  state 
into  a  consolidated  Italian  state;  and  the  further  growth  of 

1  See  §  3. 
247 


248  ROME  — INTRODUCTORY   SURVEY.  [§270 

that  Italy  into  a  world  state.  The  village  by  the  Tiber  did 
first  for  its  surrounding  hills  what  Athens  did  for  the  villages 
of  Attica ;  but  it  went  on  to  do  for  all  Italy  what  Athens  failed 
to  do  for  Greece,  and  then  for  all  the  Mediterranean  world 
what  Alexander  failed  to  do  politically  —  save  for  a  moment 
—  for  the  eastern  half.  The  later  Greeks  had  collected  and 
organized  the  letters,  arts,  sciences,  of  all  the  nations  of  anti- 
quity. Rome  was  to  preserve  this  common  treasure  of  mankind 
for  future  ages ;  to  extend  this  civilization  over  the  barbarous 
West;  to  incorporate  this  new  West  along  with  the  Hellenic 
empires  of  the  East  into  a  single,  close-bound  political  unity ; 
and  to  furnish  this  world  state  with  laws  and  institutions  that 
have  influenced  all  later  time. 

270.  The  Roman  and  the  Greek :  Work  and  Character.  —  This 
imperial  work  of  Rome  —  to  make  the  world  Roman  —  was  not 
due  to  her  genius  in  war,  great  as  that  was,  so  much  as  to  her 
political  wisdom  and  her  organizing  power.  The  Romans  were 
stern  and  harsh,  but  they  were  also  just,  obedient,  reverent,  and 
legal-minded.  They  were  a  disciplined  people,  and  they  loved 
order.  The  work  of  the  Greeks  and  that  of  the  Romans  are  curi- 
ously and  happily  related.  Each  is  strong  where  the  other  is 
weak.  The  Greeks  gave  us  philosophy  and  art ;  the  Romans,  po- 
litical institutions  and  legal  systems.  The  Greek  intellect  was 
speculative,  the  Roman  was  practical.  The  merit  of  the  Greek 
was  his  individuality ;  of  the  Roman,  his  submission  to  law. 

This  truth  is  so  important  that  it  is  worth  while  to  see  how 
diiferent  scholars  have  phrased  it. 

"  The  Greeks  had  more  genius  ;  the  Romans  more  stabiUty.  .  .  .  They 
[the  Romans]  had  less  delicacy  of  perception,  .  .  .  but  they  had  more 
sobriety  of  character  and  more  endurance.  .  .  .  Versatility  belonged  to 
the  Greek,  virility  to  the  Roman."  —  Fisher,  Outlines  of  Universal 
History,  125. 

"Action,  achievement,  and,  as  means  to  these,  order,  system,  law, 
not  attention  to  ideas  or  ideals,  mark  the  Roman  nature." — Andrews, 
Institutes  of  General  History,  73. 


§272]  THE   LAND.  249 

"Latium,  in  the  poverty  of  its  artistic  development,  stands  almost  on 
a  level  with  uncivilized  peoples ;  Hellas  developed  .  .  .  that  marvelous 
world  of  poetry  and  sculpture,  the  like  of  which  history  has  not  again  to 
show.  In  Latium  no  other  influences  were  powerful  but  prudence,  riches, 
strength  ;  it  was  reserved  for  the  Hellenes  to  feel  the  blissful  ascendancy 
of  beauty.  .  .  .  The  points  in  which  the  Hellenes  excel  the  Italians  are 
more  universally  intelligible  and  reflect  a  more  brilliant  luster ;  but  the 
deep  feeling  in  each  individual  that  he  was  only  a  part  of  the  community, 
the  rare  devotedness  and  power  of  self-sacrifice,  the  earnest  faith  in  its 
own  gods,  form  the  rich  treasure  of  the  Italian  nation.  .  .  .  Resolutely, 
the  Italian  surrendered  his  own  personal  will  for  the  sake  of  freedom, 
and  learned  to  obey  his  father  that  he  might  know  how  to  obey  the  state." 

MOMMSEN,  I.  36. 

"If  it  be  true,  as  is  sometimes  said,  that  there  is  no  literature  which 
rivals  the  Greek  except  the  English,  it  is  perhaps  even  more  true  that  the 
Anglo-Saxon  is  the  only  race  which  can  be  placed  beside  the  Roman  in 
creative  power  in  law  and  politics."  —  George  Burton  Adams,  Civiliza- 
tion during  the  Middle  Ages,  21. 


n.     THE  LAND. 

271.  Limits :  the  Apennine  District ;  Exclusion  of  the  Po 
Valley.  —  Modern  Italy,  bounded  by  the  Alps  and  the  sea, 
comprises  two  distinct  halves  —  the  level  valley  of  the  Po 
extending  from  east  to  west,  and  the  slender  mountainous 
peninsula  reaching  from  it  south  into  the  Mediterranean.  But 
until  about  27  b.c,  the  Po  valley  was  always  considered  part 
of  Gaul  (Cisalpine  Gaul,  or  Gaul  this  side,  tho,  Alps)^  and  the 
name  Italy  was  extended  at  most  to  the  true  peninsula  with 
the  Apennine  range  for  its  backbone. 

272.  Relations  of  its  Geography  to  its  History.  —  Like  Greece, 
Italy  was  specially  fitted  by  nature  for  the  work  it  was  to  do. 
Three  important  considerations  are  easily  grasped,  each  tend- 
ing to  a  development  different  from  the  eastern  peninsula's. 

a.  Political  Unity.  —  Italy  was  more  fit  than  Greece  for  that 
internal  consolidation  that  made  the  only  safe  basis  for  ex- 
ternal empire.  The  valleys  and  tablelands  of  the  Apennines 
are  connected  by  easy  passes,  and  the  geographical  divisions 


250  ROME  — INTRODUCTORY   SURVEY.  [§272 

of  the  lowlands  are  larger  and  less  distinct  than  the  districts 
in  Greece.  The  resulting  tendency  toward  political  unity  was 
reenforced  by  other  features :  the  fertile  plains  of  the  lowlands 
and  the  grassy  slopes  of  the  mountains  were  better  suited  to 
agriculture  and  grazing  than  were  the  lands  of  Greece,  while 
Italy  lacked  the  many  harbors,  the  deep  bays,  and  the  island- 
studded  sea  that  invited  the  earliest  Hellenes  to  commerce. 
Thus,  while  civilization  came  later,  energy  and  effort  were 
kept  at  home  longer,  until  the  foundations  of  empire  were 
more  securely  laid. 

b.  Direction  of  the  First  Outside  Effort.  —  The  Apennines 
not  only  fixed  the  internal  development  of  Italy ;  they  deter- 
mined also  the  direction  of  its  first  outward  movements.  The 
mountains  are  nearer  the  eastern  coast,  and  on  this  side  the 
short  rocky  spurs  and  swift  torrents  quickly  lose  themselves 
in  the  Adriatic.  The  western  slope  is  nearly  twice  as  broad ; 
here  are  the  large  fertile  plains  and  the  few  rivers,  and,  as  a 
result,  most  of  the  few  harbors  and  the  important  states. 
Thus  Italy  and  Greece  stood  back  to  back  (§  82d).  This  fact 
explains  their  separate  development  for  so  long  a  time.  Thus, 
too,  Italy  faced  west  toward  Spain,  and,  through  Sicily,  toward 
Africa ;  and  when  she  was  ready  for  outside  work,  she  gave 
herself  first  to  conquering  and  civilizing  these  lands  with  their 
fresh,  vigorous  peoples. 

c.  External  Dominion}  —  European  culture  began  in  the 
peninsula  which  was  at  once  "  the  most  European  of  European 
lands"  and  the  European  land  most  accessible  to  the  older 
civilizations  of  the  East.  Just  as  fittingly,  the  state  which 
was  to  unify  and  rule  the  scattered  lands  of  the  Mediterranean 
took  its  rise  in  the  central  peninsula  that  divides  and  com- 
mands that  inland  sea.  In  actual  history,  her  central  position 
was  to  enable  Italy,  in  her  struggle  for  empire,  to  divide  the 
Carthaginian  power   in   Africa  and  Spain  from  its  Hellenic 


1  Fuller  discussions  in  Mommsen,  I.  15-17 ;  How  and  Leigli,  2-11 ;  Sliuck- 
burgh,  5-10. 


§  274]  PEOPLES  OF  ITALY.  251 

allies  in  the  East,  to  concentrate  her  own  forces  along  her 
shorter  lines  of  communication,  and  to  conquer  her  enemies 
in  detail. 

IIL     PEOPLES   OF  ITALY. 

273.  A  Mingling  of  Races.  —  For  some  centuries  on  either 
side  the  birth  of  Christ,  Italy  was  to  be  the  mistress  of  the 
world ;  but  before,  as  since,  she  had  been  the  victim  of  stronger 
peoples.  Even  in  prehistoric  times,  the  fame  of  her  fertility 
and  beauty  had  tempted  successive  swarms  of  invaders  across 
the  Alps  and  the  Adriatic,  and  at  the  opening  of  history  the 
land  already  held  a  curious  mixture  of  races. 

274.  Chief  Divisions.  —  The  center  was  the  home  of  the 
Italians  who  eventually  were  to  give  their  language  and  law 
to  the  whole  peninsula.  They  fell  into  two  branches:  the 
western  Italians  were  lowlanders,  represented  mainly  by  the 
Latins  of  Latium;  the  eastern  and  larger  section  were  high- 
landers,  and  were  again  subdivided  into  Sabines,  Samnites, 
Volscians,  Aequians,  Lucanians,  and  so  on.  War,  of  course, 
was  the  normal  condition  between  the  Latins  of  the  plain  and 
their  ruder  kinsmen  of  the  mountain. 

The  more  important  of  the  other  races  were  recent  comers  — 
Greeks  in  the  south,  Gauls  and  Etruscans  in  the  north.  The 
Greeks  of  Magna  Graecia  have  been  referred  to  in  earlier  pages. 
The  Gauls  had  entered  last,  and  held  the  Po  valley.  They 
were  merely  a  portion  of  the  Gauls  from  beyond  the  Alps,  and 
they  remained  barbarian  until  conquered  by  Kome. 

The  Etruscans  are  a  mysterious  people  — "  the  standing 
riddle  of  history."  Scholars  now  incline  to  believe  them  a 
branch  of  the  broad-headed  Alpine  race  (§  8).  At  an  early 
time  they  had  held  a  large  part  of  Italy  in  three  great  con- 
federacies —  in  the  Po  valley,  in  Etruria,  and  in  Campania. 
Apparently  they  had  ruled  in  Latium  also,  possessing  for  a 
time  all  the  lowlands  from  the  Alps  to  the  Greek  cities  of 
the  south.     But  before  detailed  history  begins,  they  had  been 


252 


ROME  —  INTRODUCTORY   SURVEY. 


[§274 


forced  from  the  territory  south  of  the  Tiber  by  a  Latin  and 
Samnite  revival,  while  the  Gallic  invasion  had  driven  them 


Kk.mai>'s  ov  Etruscan  Akch  at  A'olatkkkae. 

from  the  Po,  and  they  had  become  restricted  practically  to  the 
central  district,  Etruria,  just  beyond  the  Tiber  from  the 
Latins.  They  were  still,  however,  the  most  civilized  people 
in  Italy.     They  were  mighty  and  skillful  builders,  and  have 


274] 


PEOPLES   OF   ITALY. 


253 


left  numerous  interesting  ruins  with  multitudes  of  inscriptions, 
in  a  language  to  which,  unfortunately,  scholars  can  find  no 
key.  They  became  celebrated  early  for  their  work  in  bronze 
and  iron,  and  they  were  the  first  commercial  people  in  Italy. 
Probably  they  introduced  many  arts  from  the  Phoenicians  and 


"Italians" 
(Umbrians) 

Etruscans 

'm 

Greeks 

Gauls 

Ligurians 

Siculi  and 
others 

1 

THE  PEOPLES 
OF  ITALY 


Greeks.  In  later  times  their  power  declined  rapidly  before 
the  rising  Eoman  state,  the  heir  of  their  civilization.  Etrus- 
can rulers  or  builders  in  early  Rome  reared  her  walls,  drained 
her  marshes,  and  fringed  the  Tiber-side  with  great  quays ;  and 
to  the  last,  the  Roman's  dress  (the  toga),  his  house,  his  favor- 
ite amusements  (the  cruel  sports  of  the  amphitheater),  and 
much  of  his  religion  (especially  the  divination  and  soothsay- 


254  ROME  — INTRODUCTORY   SURVEY.  [§275 

ing),  were  Etruscan ;  while  from  the  same  source  he  learned 
his  unrivaled  power  to  build  for  all  time.^  The  Etruscans 
were  Rome's  first  teachers.  The  Greeks  were  to  take  up  that 
office  at  a  later  time. 

275.  "  Fragments  of  Forgotten  Peoples."  —  Besides  these  four 
great  races,  whom  Rome  was  finally  to  fuse  into  one  strong  and 
noble  nation,  there  were  also  fragments  of  earlier  peoples  — 
lapygians  in  the  southern  mountains,  Veneti  in  the  marshes 
of  the  northeast,  and,  in  the  extreme  northwest,  between  the 
Alps  and  the  sea,  the  wild  Ligurians.  These  last  were  rude 
hill-men,  resembling  the  Basques  of  the  Pyrenees.  They  had 
fought  savagely  for  their  crags  and  caves  with  Etruscans  and 
Gauls,  and  were  long  to  harass  the  Roman  legions  with  guer- 
rilla warfare.  Later,  they  furnished  Rome  an  admirable  light 
infantry. 

Fob  Further  Reading.  —  With  reference  to  the  races  of  Italy,  ad- 
vanced students  may  consult  the  linguistic  theories  in  Mommsen,  I.  9-17. 
Good  treatments  are  given  by  How  and  Leigh,  11-19;  Shuckburgh,  10- 
20 ;  and  Allcroft  and  Masom,  1-18.  Sergi's  Mediterranean  Bace  gives 
recent  theories. 


IV.     GEOGRAPHICAL  ADVANTAGES  OF  ROME. 

276.  Rome  a  Type,  differentiated  from  other  Italian  Cities  by 
Geography.  —  For  long,  Rome  was  simply  one  of  many  Italian 
towns,  and,  so  far  as  we  can  tell,  her  development  was  typical 
of  other  Italian  city  life.  It  is  impossible  to  say  why  just  this 
particular  city,  rather  than  some  other  of  the  same  land  and 
race,  should  finally  have  become  the  ruling  power;  but  we  can  see 
that  the  greatness  of  Rome  rested,  in  part,  at  least,  upon  geo- 
graphical conditions.     Four  physical  factors  may  be  noted. 

1  Special  report :  Etruscan  art  and  architecture.  Duruy's  History  of  Rome, 
I.,  contains  much  valuable  material.  A  brief  discussion  of  the  question  of  an 
Etruscan  conquest  of  early  Rome  is  given  in  Pelham,  32-36.  See  also  Momm- 
sen's  theory.  Charles  Godfrey  Leland's  Etrusco-Roman  Remains  (specially 
in  the  Introduction)  gives  a  most  interesting  account  of  the  survival  to-day 


§276]         GEOGRAPHICAL   ADVANTAGES   OF  ROME.  255 

a.  Central  Position.  —  E/ome  is  the  central  city  of  the  penin- 
sula, and  so  had  advantages  for  consolidating  Italy  like  those 
enjoyed  by  Italy  for  unifying  the  Mediterranean  coasts.  It  was 
not  altogether  accidental  that  Mediterranean  dominion  fell  to 
the  central  city  of  the  central  land. 

b.  Commercial  Site.  —  The  Tiber  was  the  one  navigable  river 
of  Italy.  In  very  early  times  ships  sailed  up  the  river  to  Rome, 
while  barges  brought  down  to  her  wharves  the  wheat  and  wine 
of  the  uplands.  The  site  had  the  advantages  of  a  port,  but  was 
far  enough  from  the  coast  to  be  safer  than  a  coast  town  from 
sudden  raids  by  the  pirates  that  swarmed  on  the  sea.  There 
is  no  doubt  that  Rome's  early  greatness  in  Latium  was  largely 
due  to  her  importance  as  a  mart  of  commerce,  and  her  earlier 
peasant  dwellers  rapidly  became  princely  merchants  and  money 
lenders.^ 

c.  A  Mark  State.  —  The  Latin  settlement  by  the  Tiber  was 
a  "  mark  state,"  bordering  on  hostile  Etruria  across  the  river 
and  on  hostile  Sabines  in  the  eastern  mountains.  The  set- 
tlers of  necessity  excelled  other  Latins  in  war,  and  held  a 
moral  leadership  among  them  as  their  champions.^  Such  a 
position  was  favorable  also  to  some  mingling  of  stocks,  such 
as  Roman  tradition  insisted  did  take  place. 

d.  "  The  Seven  HiUs" :  Federation,  Flexible  Custom,  Law. — 
Most  important  of  all,  Rome  was  the  "  city  of  the  seven  hills." 
Italian  towns,  like  the  Greek  (§  93),  had  their  origin  each 
in  some  acropolis,  or  hill  fortress ;  and  even  in  Latium  there 
were  many  settlements,  like  the  older  Alba  Longa  or  the  later 
Praeneste,  that  frowned  from  more  formidable  heights  than 
those  held  by  Rome.     But  nowhere  else  was  there  so  placed 

among  the  Tuscan  peasantry  of   the  old   pre-Roman  pagan  religion  and 
divination. 

1  Read  Moramsen,  I.  59S2  on  the  Tiber  traific,  or  Tighe,  51-53 ;  and,  if  ac- 
cessible, Goldwin  Smith's  Greatness  of  the  Romans,  in  the  Contemporary 
Review  for  May,  1878,  or  in  Lectures  and  Essays. 

2  For  the  growth  of  **  mark,"  or  border,  states  into  empires,  advanced  stu- 
dents will  note  the  later  cases  of  Wessex  in  England,  and  Prussia  and  Austria 
in  Germany. 


256  ROME  — INTRODUCTORY  SURVEY.  (;§  277 

in  the  midst  of  a  fertile  plain  a  group  of  hills,  each  suited  for 
separate  settlement,  but  so  close  together  that  hostility  or 
isolation  had  to  give  way  ere  long  to  federation  or  conquest. 
Tradition  and  geography  agree  that  Rome  arose  from  the 
association  of  such  a  group  of  separate  towns. ^ 

Nor  was  the  gain  merely  in  physical  power.  That  was  the 
least  of  it.  Early  societies  are  fettered  rigidly  by  tyrannous 
eustom,  so  that  the  beginnings  of  change  and  progress  are 
inconceivably  slow.  In  Rome  this  incorporation  of  distinct 
societies  on  equal  terms  broke  these  bonds  at  a  period  far 
earlier  than  common.  Necessity  compelled  the  tribes  to  adopt 
broader  views  of  their  relations  toward  each  other ;  and  com- 
promise and  treaty  took  the  place  of  inflexible  custom.  Thus 
Rome  was  started  upon  the  development  of  her  marvelous 
system  of  law,  and  the  process  of  association  began  that  was 
later  to  unite  Italy. 

V.  LEGENDARY    HISTORY. 

277.  Old  Writers  and  Sources.^  —  The  Romans  did  not  begin 
to  write  the  history  of  their  city  until  about  200  B.C., — 
two  centuries  after  Herodotus  and  Thucydides  had  created  the 
noble  historical  literature  of  Greece.  The  first  Roman  histo- 
ries, moreover,  were  rude  and  meager  annals.  The  composers 
found  two  kinds  of  materials  for  the  earlier  centuries  —  unre- 
liable family  chronicles  and  scant  official  records.  The  latter, 
which  had  been  kept  by  the  colleges  of  priests,  comprised  only 
lists  of  magistrates  for  the  early  period,  with  an  occasional 
brief  notice  of  some  striking  event  or  some  peculiar  natural 
phenomenon,  like  an  eclipse ;  and  even  these  barren  records 
had  been  destroyed  up  to  the  year  390  B.C.  (when  the  Gauls 
sacked  the  city),  and  had  been  restored,  imperfectly,  from 

1  Freeman's  Historical  Essays,  Second  Series,  252,  253;  Ihne's  Early  Rome, 
6-8;  Goldwin  Smith,  in  Contemporary  Review,  May,  1878;  Mommsen,  I.  62- 
71,  and  100-109. 

2  The  class  should  read  Ihne's  Early  Rome,  9-31;  or  Ihne's  History,  I.  277- 
284;  orTighe,  7-17;  or  Shuckburgh,  55-60. 


§278]  LEGENDARY   HISTORY.  257 

memory.  And  though  the  great  gentes  fed  their  pride  by  set 
funeral  orations  ^  and  by  family  histories,  yet  these  were  based 
upon  oral  tradition  distorted  to  suit  family  glory ;  and  of 
course  they  were  filled  with  the  wildest  exaggerations  and 
inventions. 

From  such  sources  Fabius  Pictor  (§  489)  wrote  the  first  con- 
nected history  of  Rome.  He  and  his  successors  (mostly 
Greeks  at  Rome)  trimmed  and  patched  their  narratives  in- 
geniously to  get  rid  of  the  grosser  inconsistencies ;  borrowed 
freely  from  incidents  in  Greek  history,  and  apparently  just  as 
freely  from  their  imagination,  to  fill  gaps ;  and  so  gradually 
produced  an  attractive  story  that  hung  together  pretty  well  in 
the  absence  of  skilled  criticism.  These  early  works  themselves 
are  now  lost ;  but  two  hundred  years  later,  Livy  and  Dionysius 
built  upon  them,  and,  until  after  1800  a.d.,  the  accounts  of 
the  legendary  age  by  these  writers  were  accepted  as  real  his- 
tory. They  held  their  place  in  schools  even  longer,  and  until 
recently  were  one  of  the  most  essential  parts  of  a  boy's  "  his- 
torical "  knowledge. 

278.  Abstract  of  the  **  Legends  of  Regal  Rome."  —  According  to 
this  classical  story  (told  in  great  detail  through  many  chapters)  Rome  was 
ruled  from  753  to  510  b.c.  by  seven  successive  kings.  The  founder,  Bomu- 
lus^  was  the  son  of  Mars,  God  of  War,  and  of  a  Latin  princess  ;  as  a  babe 
he  had  been  exposed  to  die,  but  was  preserved  and  suckled  by  a  wolf  ; 
he  grew  up  among  rude  shepherds  ;  with  their  aid  he  built  a  city  on 
the  Palatine  Mount  above  the  old  wolf's  den  ;  here  he  gathered  about 
him  outlaws  from  all  quarters,  and  these  men  seized  the  daughters  of  a 
Sabine  tribe  for  wives  ;  this  led  to  war,  and  finally  to  the  union  of  the 
Romans  and  the  Sabines,  who  then  settled  upon  one  of  the  neighboring 


1  Special  report  upon  Roman  funeral  customs  with  reference  to  historical 
orations.  The  Latins  never  had  a  Homer  to  create  a  great  national  epic,  but 
Niebuhr  held  that  they  must  have  had  a  voluminous  ballad  literature,  and 
that  the  early  annalists  drew  upon  this.  Maeaulay  adopted  this  view,  and 
in  his  Lmjs  of  Ancient  Rome  tried  to  reproduce  such  ballads.  Every  student 
should  know  the  Lays ;  and  the  introduction  contains  a  valuable  discussion 
upon  the  sources  of  Roman  history..  Ihne,  however,  and  later  scholars  gen- 
erally, doubt  the  existence  of  any  extensive  ballad  literature  at  Rome.  See 
Early  Rome,  18, 19. 


258  ROME  — INTRODUCTORY  SURVEY.  [§279 

hills.  Romulus  organized  the  people  into  tribes,  curias,  and  gentes  ;  ap- 
pointed a  senate  ;  conquered  widely  ;  and  was  finally  taken  up  to  heaven 
by  the  gods  in  a  thunderstorm,  or,  as  some  thought,  was  killed  by  jealous 
senators.  Numa,  the  next  king,  elected  after  a  year's  interregnum,  estab- 
lished religious  rites,  and  gave  laws  and  arts  of  peace,  which  were  taught 
him  by  the  nymph  Egeria  in  a  sacred  grove  by  night.  Tullus  Hostilius, 
a  warlike  conqueror,  is  a  shadowy  Romulus,  and  Ancus  Marcius  is  a 
faint  copy  of  Numa.  The  fifth  king  was  Tarquin  the  First,  an  Etruscan 
adventurer,  who  was  succeeded  by  Servius  Tullius^  son  of  a  slave  girl, 
and  he  was  followed  by  a  second  Tarquin,  Tarquin  the  Proud,  whose 
tyranny  led  to  expulsion  and  to  the  establishment  of  a  republic.  The 
last  three  sovereigns  were  "tyrants"  in  the  Greek  sense;  they  favored 
the  common  people,  or  the  plebs,  against  the  aristocratic  patricians  ;  and 
they  extended  the  sway  of  Rome,  and  constructed  great  and  useful  works. 

279.  The  Present  Attitude  of  Scholars.  —  To  scholars  of  a 
century  ago,  Romulus  and  Tarquin  were  as  historical  as  George 
the  Third  and  Elizabeth ;  but  early  in  the  nineteenth  century 
the  G-erman  historian  Niehuhr  overthrew  all  belief  in  the 
stories  prior  to  the  republic,  and  indeed  rejected  the  account 
of  Livy  for  one  hundred  and  twenty  years  more,  down  to 
390  B.C.  In  1853,  Sir  George  C.  Lewis  in  his  two  volumes  on 
The  Credibility  of  Early  Roman  History  gave  reasons  for  sus- 
pecting the  details  of  the  narratives  for  over  a  century  more. 
No  one  now  regards  the  legends  of  the  regal  period  as  history, 
and  no  one  expects  to  fix  more  than  general  movements  before 
390  B.C. 

However,  beside  the  legends,  we  now  have  some  other  mate- 
rial :  the  researches  of  archaeologists  into  the  early  buildings 
of  ancient  Rome  reveal  some  facts  in  the  city's  material  growth ; 
early  inscriptions  and  annals  in  neighboring  towns  have  been 
discovered,  casting  many  side  lights;  and  the  study  of  later 
laws  and  customs  helps  to  make  clear  the  real  nature  of  some 
obscure  earlier  institutions.  Moreover,  the  stories  themselves 
do  have  two  kinds  of  historical  value :  they  afford  a  basis  for 
guesses  at  historical  truth,  some  of  which  can  then  be  proven 
good  in  other  ways ;  and  in  any  case  they  show  what  the  later 
Romans  thought  noble  and  admirable  in  character  and  life. 


§279]  LEGENDARY   HISTORY.  259 

References  for  Further  Reading.  —  Some  of  the  more  important 
references  have  been  given  in  detail  by  sections  and  paragraphs.  For  the 
chapter,  as  a  whole,  the  chief  modern  guides  are  Mommsen  and  Ihne. 

Special  Reports.. —  1.  Particular  legends  of  the  kings,  with  modem 
criticism  or  interpretation.  The  teacher  can  select  as  many  such  topics 
as  he  can  spare  time  for ;  material  will  be  found  in  Ihne's  Early  Some, 
or  better,  History  of  Borne,  I.  2.  Discuss  relative  historical  value  of 
Plutarch's  Lives  of  Bomulus,  Aratus,  Themistocles.  The  teacher  can 
easily  set  a  number  of  such  exercises  to  different  students ;  thus,  Numa, 
Solon,  Cleomenes,  for  a  second  set,  etc. 


CHAPTER   II. 

PROBABLE  CONCLUSIONS  AS   TO   REGAL  ROMR 

I.    THE   GllOWTH  OF  THE  CITY. 

280.  Unification  of  the  Seven  HiUs.  — The  oldest  part  of 
Rome  seems  to  have  been  a  settlement  on  the  crest  of  the 
Palatine  —  the  most  detached  of  the  group  of  low  hills  on  the 
south  bank  of  the  Tiber.  The  solidly  built  walls  of  this  origi- 
nal "  square  town "  can  still  be  traced.  With  this  city  were 
successively  confederated  other  Latin  settlements  on  the  neigh- 
boring hills,  and  finally  a  hostile  Sabine  outpost  on  the  Quiri- 
nal.^  Each  such  addition  called  for  another  more  widely 
circling  wall.  The  latest  of  these  early  walls,  known  as  the 
wall  of  Servius,  enclosed  all  the  seven  hills,  together  with  va- 
cant space  sufficient  for  the  growth  of  the  city  to  a  late  period. 
Portions  of  this  colossal  structure  still  exist  on  the  Aventine, 
as  do  also  remains  of  the  huge  arched  drains  that  converted 
the  marshes  between  the  Capitol  and  the  Palatine  into  the 
firm  ground  of  the  Forum  (market  place)  and  the  Comitium, 
or  place  of  assembly. 

281.  Growth  of  Territory  beyond  the  Walls.  ^  At  first,  even 
after  the  union  of  the  seven  hills,  the  territory  of  the  city  must 
have  been  but  a  narrow  strip  along  the  river,  some  two  miles 
down  and  five  miles  up  its  course,  limited  in  every  direction 

1  Apart  from  tradition,  the  proofs  of  original  separate  settlements  are 
manifold.  Later  Latin  writers  mention  rude  ramparts  of  distinct  ancient 
settlements  still  existing  in  their  day  on  the  Esquiline,  the  Capitol,  and  the 
Quirinal;  while  in  recent  times  such  remains  have  been  discovered  on  the 
Coelian.  Various  festivals  of  later  Rome  and  certain  religious  rites  point 
also  to  such  union  of  separate  settlements,  and  a  number  of  double  pries^ 
hoods  indicate  a  like  fact.  See  Pelham,  15-17,  or  Shuckburgh,  23-26;  and, 
more  fully,  Mommsen,  I.  77-87. 

260 


§  281] 


THE   GROWTH  OF   THE   CITY. 


261 


by  the  lands  of  other  like  towns  (of  which  there  were  thirty 
in  little  Latium).  But  before  500  b.c.  war  with  neighboring 
Latin,  Sabine,  and  Etruscan  cities  had  produced  decided  ex- 
pansion.    Eome  had  come  to  possess  nearly  one  third  of  Latium 


ROME 

under  the  Kings 


1.  Citadel  (Arx).  4.  Citadel  at  Janiculum.       7.  Senate  House  (Curia). 

2.  Temple  of  Jupiter  (Capitolinus).      5.  Old  Wall  of  Eomulus.       8.  Comitium. 

3.  Quaysof  the  Tarquins.  6.  Temple  of  Vesta. 

and  to  control  the  Latin  side  of  the  Tiber,  some  eighteen  miles 
either  way,  from  the  highlands  to  its  mouth,  where  was  founded 
the  first  Roman  colony,  Ostia,  for  a  port.  Rome  also  won  and 
held  a  fortified  hill,  the  Mount  Janiculum,  just  across  the  Tiber, 


262  CONCLUSIONS   AS   TO   REGAL   ROME.  [§282 

as  an  outpost  against  the  Etruscans.  Several  of  the  conquered 
Latin  towns  were  razed,  and  their  inhabitants  brought  to  Eome. 
What  was  more  important,  Rome  had  destroyed  Alba  Longa 
(the  Long  White  City),  the  ancient  head  of  the  Latin  confed- 
eracy, and  had  succeeded  to  that  headship  herself. 

For  Further  Reading.  —  Mommsen,  bk.  i.  chs.  iv.  and  vii. ;   Ihne,  I. 
8-107,  gives  a  good  criticism  of  the  legends. 

II.     CITIZENS   AND   NON-CITIZENS. 

282.  Patricians.  —  Three  of  the  settlements  on  the  Tiber  hills 
seem  to  have  federated  finally  upon  a  footing  of  essential  equal- 


The  Cloaca  Maxima. 

ity,  making  the  three  Roman  tribes  —  Ramnes,  Tities,  and  Lu- 
ceres.  These  tribesmen  were  patricians  (men  "  with  fathers," 
or  men  of  regular  citizenship  through  their  fathers).  They 
formed  the  "  Roman  peoj)le  "  in  the  strict  sense;  and  for  a  long 
time  they  were  the  only  full  citizens,  except  as  they  now  and 
then  adopted  clans  from  conquered  cantons  into  their  ranks. 


§283] 


CITIZENS  AND  NON-CITIZENS. 


263 


283.  Clients.  —  The  greater  patrician  families  in  regal  times 
contained  numerous  non-freemen,  below  the  son  and  above  the 
slave,  known  as  clients.  The  client  could  hold  property  and 
engage  in  trade ;  but  his  rights  at  law  were  secured  only  through 


Remains  of  the  Wall  of  Servius  on  the  Avbntine. 


his  patron,  and,  as  against  the  patron,  he  had  no  protection 
except  custom  and  public  opinion.  His  children  remained  de- 
pendents in  the  same  family.  The  origin  of  the  class  is  uncer- 
tain; but  it  was  recruited  in  regal  Rome  from  the  freed  slaves 
(who  remained  attached  in  this  way  to  the  family  of  their  old 
master)  and  from  strangers  who,  on  coming  to  Rome,  placed 


264  CONCLUSIONS  AS  TO  REGAL  ROME.  [§284 

themselves  of  choice  in  this  relation  to  a  powerful  patrician  in 
order  to  secure  protection. 

284.  Plebeians.  —  When  the  population  of  a  conquered  can- 
ton in  the  early  time  was  removed  to  Eome,  the  whole  people 
sometimes  became  "  clients  of  the  king.'^  They  soon  took  the 
name  of  plebeians.  Their  rights  were  less  assured  at  first  than 
those  of  the  clients  .of  some  individual  patrician,  but  they  were 
freer  from  the  interference  of  a  master.  They  were  reenforced 
by  the  class  of  refugees  and  adventurers  that  arose  in  all  Ital- 
ian and  Greek  cities  (§  136),  especially  in  a  commercial  city 
like  Rome ;  and  their  importance  and  security  grew  with  their 
numbers,  until  the  old  domestic  clients  sought  escape  into  their 
ranks.  ^ 

Thus  the  inhabitants  of  Rome  were  left  in  the  two  classes,-- 
patricians  and  plebeians.  The  latter  were  not  citizens.  They 
had  no  part  in  the  religion  or  law  or  politics  of  the  city.  They 
could  not  intermarry  with  citizens;  and  though  good  policy 
and  custom  required  the  city  to  protect  their  property  rights, 
they  had  no  satisfactory  means  ^  of  securing  even  these  against 
unscrupulous  patricians. 

For  Further  Reading,  especially  with  reference  to  the  origin  and 
standing  of  the  plebs  :  Mommsen,  I.  109-114 ;  Tighe,  64-58 ;  Ihne,  Early 
Borne,  114,  115,  or  History,  1. 109,  110. 

IIL     THE  PATRICIAN  ORGANIZATION. 

285.  The  Family  counted  for  more  in  Rome  than  in  Greece 
or  in  the  modern  world.  This  was  because  of  the  peculiar 
power  of  the  Roman  father  (patria  potestas)  over  all  h^ 
descendants  in  male  lines.     When  his  son  took  a  wife,  she, 

1  This  early  clientage,  which  wholly  vanished,  must  not  he  confounded  with 
the  later  and  far  different  clientage  of  the  last  days  of  the  republic  and  of  the 
empire. 

2  Except  in  cases  where  the  stranger  came  voluntarily  from  a  Latin  city 
whose  people  enjoyed  by  treaty  mutual  residence  and  trading  rights  with 
Rome. 


§  286]  THE   PATRICIAN  ORGANIZATION.  265 

too,  leaving  her  own  family,  came  under  his  control.  His 
daughters  of  course  by  marriage  passed  from  his  hand  under 
that  of  some  other  house-father.  E-oman  law  recognized  no 
relationship  through  females.^  The  father  ruled  his  house- 
hold, and  the  households  of  his  male  descendants,  as  priest, 
judge,  and  king.  He  could  sell  or  slay  wife,  unmarried 
daughter,  grown-up  son,  or  son's  wife ;  and  all  that  was  theirs 
was  his.     No  appeal  lay  from  him  to  any  higher  judge. 

So  much  for  law.  In  custom,  the  father  was  largely  in- 
fluenced by  near  relatives  and  by  his  wife's  relatives,  and  even 
more  by  public  opinion  and  religious  feeling.  Thus  a  man  was 
declared  accursed  if  he  sold  a  married  son  into  slavery  (though 
even  then  no  law  could  touch  him) ;  and  it  is  a  curious  fact 
that,  despite  the  legal  slavery  of  every  wife,  the  Roman  matrons 
possessed  a  dignity  and  public  influence  unknown  in  Greece.^ 

None  the  less  this  patria  potestas  was  very  real;  and  the  des- 
potism of  the  head  of  the  family  was  to  influence  profoundly 
the  development  of  the  head  of  the  state.^ 

286.  The  Gentes  and  Curias.  —  In  Rome,  as  in  Greece,  we 
find  above  the  family  larger  blood  units, — the  clans,  or  gentes. 
Originally,  each  clan  must  have  been  ruled  by  its  chief,  or 
perhaps  by  a  council  of  heads  of  families.  In  the  earliest 
historical  times,  however,  the  three  hundred  clans  were  grouped 
in  thirty  curias,  which  had  come  to  be  the  most  important 
divisions  of  the  people,  both  for  religious  and  for  political  pur- 
poses. Each  curia  possessed  its  own  religious  festivals,  its 
own  priest,  its  temple  and  sacred  hearth ;  and  in  the  political 
assembly  of  the  people,  the  curia  was  the  unit  for  voting. 
Probably  in  origin  the  curia  corresponded  to  the  Greek  phratry ; 
but  in  Rome  it  had  become  more  vital,  and  had  also  come  to  be 
connected  with  a  fixed  territory. 

1  See  especially  Coulanges,  71-75;  and  cf.  §  91  of  this  book. 

2  Special  report :  stories  illustrating  the  influence  of  women  in  republican 
Rome.     (Can  you  parallel  them  in  Greek  history?) 

8  On  the  family,  see  Mommsen,  I.  72-80.  Advanced  students  may  consult 
Coulanges'  Ancient  City,  41-76  and  95-131. 


266  CONCLUSIONS  AS  TO  REGAL  ROME.  [§287 

287.  Exclusion  of  the  Plebs  from  the  Patrician  Organization-  — 

The  client  had  a  subordinate  place  in  the  family  worship  (as 
indeed  the  slave  had) ;  possibly  the  client  had  a  place  also  in 
the  political  gatherings  of  his  patron's  curia,  though  he  cer- 
tainly had  no  vote ;  but  the  free  plebeians  were  wholly  outside 
this  patrician  organization.^  Probably,  however,  they  were 
not  a  mere  mixed  multitude.  Many  of  them  must  have  been 
brought  to  Rome  as  clans  and  tribes,  and  no  doubt  they  kept 
up  their  gentile  organization  there,  even  though  patrician 
(Roman)  law  and  society  knew  nothing  of  it.^     (Cf.  also  §  317.) 

IV.    RELIGION. 

288.  Sources  in  Ancestor  and  Nature  Worship ;  Greek  Influence. 

—  The  chief  sources  of  the  Roman  religion  were  two:  (1)  for 
the  family  and  curia,  an  ancestor  worship  similar  to  the  Greek, 
but  more  intense,  as  we  should  expect  from  the  nature  of  the 
Roman  family;  and  (2)  along  with  this,  for  the  state,  a 
nature  worship.  This  latter  was  far  ruder  than  in  Greece. 
The  Romans  lacked  imagination  to  give  a  live  human  character 
and  real  feeling  to  the  powers  of  nature,  and  they  could  never 
create  a  rich  and  beautiful  mythology,  even  though  they  did 
finally  borrow  the  Greek  gods —  Zeus  as  Jupiter  (Zeus-pater), 
Hera  as  Juno,  Athene  as  Minerva,  Ares  as  Mars,  and  so  on 
through  the  Pantheon  (§  100). 

289.  Character :  a  Worship  of  Abstractions,  by  Formal  Rites.  — 

In  crossing  to  Rome  these  deities  became  less  like  men,  and 
more  like  mere  colorless  abstractions.  In  consequence,  Roman 
religion  seems  to  us  "  insipid  and  dull,"  only  "  a  dreary  round 
of  ceremonies,"^  with  little  of  adoration,  no  poetry,  and  no 
love.     As  a  matter  of  prudence,  the  will  of  the  gods   was 

1  This  seems  by  far  the  preferable  view.  See  Ihne,  History,  I.  109-114, 
and  Early  Rome,  112,  and  114-116.  See  also  Coulanges,  299-313,  341-349,  354- 
359,  and  elsewhere.  Momrasen  used  to  state  a  view  sharply  opposed  to  this, 
but  his  position  has  been  somewhat  modified  in  his  later  writings. 

2  Read  Ihne's  Early  Rome,  114.  «  The  phrases  are  Momm sen's. 


§  291]  RELIGION.  267 

sought  out  by  a  strict  study  of  omens,  and  they  were  wor- 
shiped with  rigid  observance  of  rites  and  ceremonies.  Divine 
favor  could  be  lost  by  failure  to  observe  exact  times  and  pre- 
cise gestures  in  a  service,  or  by  the  omission  or  addition  of  a 
single  word ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  mysterious  intrica- 
cies of  worship  had  the  value  of  a  conjui'or's  charm,  and  almost 
compelled  the  aid  of  the  gods. 

290.  Priesthoods ;  Pontiffs  and  Augurs.  —  Under  these  condi- 
tions there  grew  up  in  Eome  (as  in  other  Italian  towns)  two 
important  colleges  of  city  priests  —  each  a  close  corporation, 
holding  office  for  life. 

a.  The  six  pontiffs  (pontifices)  had  a  general  oversight  of 
the  whole  complex  system  of  divine  law,  and,  indirectly,  they 
became  the  guardians  of  human  science  also.  Their  care  of 
the  precise  dates  of  festivals  made  them  the  keepers  of  the 
calendar  and  of  the  rude  religious  annals;  they  had  oversight 
of  weights  and  measures  ;  and  they  themselves  described  their 
knowledge  as  the  science  of  all  things  human  and  divine. 

h.  The  gods  at  Rome  manifested  their  will  by  omens,  not 
by  oracles.^  The  two  most  important  kinds  of  these  auspices 
were  the  flight,  or  other  conduct  of  birds,  and  the  nature  of  the 
entrails  of  animals.  The  interpretation  of  such  signs  became 
a  kind  of  science,  in  the  special  possession  of  a  college  of  six 
augurs. 

Besides  these  skilled  colleges  for  the  religion  of  the  whole 
city,  each  temple  had  its  special  priest.  Of  these,  perhaps 
the  most  important  were  the  six  Vestal  Virgins,  who  for  cen- 
turies kept  the  sacred  fire  alive  and  pure  on  the  city  hearth. 

291.  Political  Value  (Religious  Fiction) . — Despite  its  formal- 
ism, or  perhaps  because  of  it,  Roman  religion  became  a  mighty 
political  instrument.  No  public  act,  vote,  election,  or  battle, 
could  be  begun  without  divine  approval.     That  approval  once 

1  The  Sibylline  Books  were  the  only  approach  to  an  oracle  in  Roman  his- 
tory.   A  good  topic  for  brief  oral  report  (see  Etruscan  influence,  §  274) . 


268  CONCLUSIONS  AS  TO   REGAL  ROME.  [§291 

given,  the  gods  were  to  be  held  to  strict  account.  They  were 
preeminently  the  guardians  of  contracts ;  and  they  themselves 
were  bound  by  implied  contracts  with  the  state.  If  they  were 
properly  consulted  concerning  a  proposed  measure  and  had 
manifested  their  approval,  then  they  were  under  obligation 
to  see  the  project  to  a  successful  issue. 

Thus  piety  became  a  matter  of  foresight ;  and  the  thrifty, 
mercantile  Roman  mind  drove  hard  bargains,  too,  with  the 
gods.  Many  "  legal  fictions  "  were  introduced  into  the  wor- 
ship, so  that  finally  the  state  might  do  pretty  nearly  as  it 
pleased  and  still  hold  the  gods  to  a  shrewdly-secured  support.^ 
The  soothsayers  called  for  fresh  animals  until  the  entmils  gave 
the  signs  desired  by  the  ruling  magistrate,  and  the  gods  were 
just  as  much  bound  as  if  they  had  shown  favor  at  the  first 
trial.  The  sky  was  watched  until  the  desired  birds  did  appear, 
and,  in  the  later  periods,  tame  birds  were  kept  to  give  the  re- 
quired indications.  If  all  signs  failed,  the  augur  could  still 
declare  that  he  found  them.  He  himself  thereby  incurred 
divine  wrath,  but,  since  all  forms  had  been  complied  with,  the 
gods  were  bound  to  treat  the  obligation  to  the  state  as  if  the 
announcement  had  been  true.  In  the  earlier  ages,  of  course, 
this  element  of  crafty  contrivance  was  probably  absent,  but 
even  then  the  religion  had  the  same  bargain-and-sale  character 
and  a  like  formalism. 

The  priests  and  augurs,  too,  were  the  servants  of  the  state, 
not  its  masters.  They  did  not  make  a  distinct  hereditary 
class,  but  were  themselves  warriors  and  statesmen.  In  their 
priestly  functions  they  acted  only  at  the  command  of  the 
civil  magistrate.  The  augurs  sought  no  omen,  and  made  no 
announcement,  except  when  directed  to  do  so. 

For  Further  Reading.  —  On  ancestor  worship :  Tighe,  35-43,  and 
Coulanges,  1-48.  For  the  state  religion  in  general:  Ihne,  Early  Rome, 
92-104 ;  How  and  Leigh,  288-292  ;  or  a  longer  discussion  in  Mommsen, 

^  Such  "  fiction  "  is  common  in  early  religion,  but  nowhere  else  has  it  played 
80  large  a  part  as  at  Rome  (see  references  at  close  of  section). 


§293]  EARLIEST  POLITICAL  INSTITUTIONS.  269 

bk.  i.  ch.  xii.  For  Greek  influence :  Tighe,  105-108.  On  "legal  fiction " 
in  the  Roman  religion :  How  and  Leigh,  290  j  or  better,  Ihne,  Early 
Borne,  99,  100,  103,  125. 


V.    EARLIEST  POLITICAL  INSTITUTIONS. 

292.  The  King  (rex).  —  The  three  political  elements  —  king, 
council  of  chiefs,  and  popular  assembly  of  tribesmen  —  which 
we  saw  in  Homeric  Greece  (§§  95-97),  appeared  also  in  legend- 
ary Eome.  The  king,  however,  held  a  more  prominent  place. 
He  stood  to  the  Roman  state  as  the  father  to  the  Roman  fam- 
ily. The  royal  imperium  was  only  an  enlarged  copy  of  the 
paternal  potestas.  The  king  was  judge,  without  appeal,  in  all 
cases  outside  the  individual  family.  He  was  absolute  over 
the  lives  of  the  citizens.  He  alone  could  call  together  senate 
or  Assembly,  or  make  proposals  to  them.  The  consent  of 
the  Assembly  was  required  for  the  accession  of  a  new  king ; 
but,  regularly,  that  consent  could  be  given  only  to  some  one 
nominated  by  the  previous  king.     (See  also  §  294.) 

So  long,  indeed,  as  the  king  claimed  to  keep  within  old  cus- 
tom, there  was  no  legal  check  upon  his  power.  But  he  did  not 
hold  this  authority  against  the  popular  will.  He  was  absolute, 
because  Roman  ideas  favored  such  power  in  the  head  of  the 
family  and  of  the  state.  Like  the  house-father,  moreover,  he 
was  limited  in  practice  by  custom  and  by  public  opinion.  He 
vras  expected  to  consider  the  advice  of  the  senate,  as  the 
father  was  to  consider  that  of  relatives,  and  he  could  not 
change  an  existing  custom  without  the  consent  both  of  the 
Assembly  and  the  senate.  If  he  ceased  to  respect  these  in- 
definite but  very  real  checks,  he  was  very  likely  to  cease  to 
rule. 

293.  The  Comitia  Curiata.  —  The  earliest  popular  Assembly 
was  an  assembly  by  curias.  Each  curia  had  one  vote.  If 
clients  were  present,  they  had  no  voice  in  determining  the 
vote  of  their  patrons'  curias  (§  287  and  note).  The  gathering 
politically  was  purely  patrician.     The  curias  met  at  call  of  the 


270  CONCLUSIONS  AS  TO   REGAL   ROME.  [§  294 

king,  usually  only  to  hear  his  commands,  but  their  approval 
was  required  for  all  change, — for  offensive  war,  new  laws,^ 
the  adoption  of  new  clans  into  a  curia  or  of  strangers  into  a 
family,  or  the  alienation  of  property  by  will.  The  Assembly 
also  approved  or  rejected  the  king's  nominees  for  offices. 

294.  The  Senate  seems  originally  to  have  been  a  council  of 
the  chiefs  (cf.  §  96)  of  the  three  hundred  clans.  It  kept  this 
number,  but  the  kings  gradually  got  the  power  of  appointing 
to  vacancies  —  probably  at  first  when  there  were  conflicting 
claims  within  a  clan,  and  finally  at  will.  The  senate  had 
become  mainly  an  advisory  body,  though  it  had  also  a  veto  on 
any  change.  When  a  king  died  without  a  successor,  it  resumed 
more  of  its  original  power :  its  members  ruled  by  turns,  for 
five  days  each,  as  inter-reges  ("  kings  for  an  interval ").  The 
first  inter-rex  was  chosen  by  lot ;  each  one  then  designated  his 
successor,  and  any  one  after  the  first  could  nominate  a  perma- 
nent king ;  but  no  election  could  take  place  except  upon  such 
nomination.  Each  inter-rex  for  his  brief  rule  retained  the 
regal  imperium  in  full.^ 

VL    TWO  PREHISTORIC  REVOLUTIONS-^ 

A.   The  Patrician  Curiate  Assembly  gives  Way  to  a 
Centuriate  Assembly. 

295.  The  Military  "Census  of  Servius." — The  first  great  po- 
litical change  (admission  of  the  plebs  to  citizenship)  grew  out 
of  military  reform,  or  at  least  was  intimately  connected  with  it. 
Originally,  the  army  was  made  up  of  "the  Roman  people"  — 
the  patricians  and  their  immediate  clients.  The  plebeians 
paid  a  tax,  probably,  but  as  they  grew  in  importance,  the  state 

1  But  cf.  Pelham,  28. 

2  On  these  institutions,  see  Mommsen,  bk.  1.  ch.  vi.  In  particular,  read 
pp.  80-85,  on  the  king,  and  96-102,  on  the  senate. 

8  The  first  two  radical  changes,  as  in  Hellas,  were  the  expulsion  of  the  kings 
and  the  entrance  of  the  plebs  into  the  political  city. 


§  296]  THE   CENTURIATE   ASSEMBLY.  271 

needed  also  their  personal  services.  Tradition  ascribes  the 
new  military  census^  to  Servius,  the  "  sixth  king."  Rome  was 
a  city  of  some  eighty  thousand  or  a  hundred  thousand  people 
(about  the  size  of  Athens  in  the  Persian  wars),  with  a  fighting 
population  of  perhaps  twenty  thousand  free  males.  Eighteen 
hundred  of  the  wealthiest  of  these  were  called  upon  to  serve 
as  cavalry  (equites,  or  knights),  and  all  other  landowners,  ple- 
beians as  well  as  patricians,  were  divided  into  five  classes,  ac- 
cording to  the  equipment  they  were  able  to  furnish,  for  service 
in  the  infantry.  At  this  time  some  eight  thousand  (the  first 
class)  had  property  enough  to  serve  in  full  armor.  They  made 
the  front  ranks  of  the  phalanx  or  legion.  Behind  them  stood 
the  second  and  third  classes,  less  completely  equipped,  but 
still  ranking  as  "heavy-armed."  The  poorer  fourth  and  fifth 
classes  served  as  light-armed  troops.  Then  all  the  free  non- 
landowners  were  enrolled  in  a  mass,  to  follow  the  army,  if 
necessary,  as  workmen  or  reserves. 

Each  of  the  five  classes  was  subdivided  into  centuries,  or 
companies  of  a  hundred  men  each.  Half  of  the  centuries  of 
each  class  were  made  up  of  the  younger  men  (seventeen  to  forty- 
six  years  of  age),  who  were  expected  to  take  the  field  at  any 
time.  The  other  half,  made  up  of  older  men,  formed  the  gar- 
rison of  the  city,  or  were  called  out  only  on  special  occasions. 
When  the  arrangement  took  its  fixed  form,  there  were  one  hun- 
dred and  ninety-three  of  these  centuries,  —  eighteen  of  knights, 
eighty  of  the  first  class,  twenty  in  each  of  the  second,  third, 
and  fourth  classes,  thirty  in  the  fifth  class,  with  four  centuries 
of  engineers  and  trumpeters  distributed  among  the  others,  and 
with  the  mass  of  non-landowners,  known  as  the  "  century  of 
the  proletariat." 

296.  The  *<Army**  of  Centuries  becomes  an  "Assembly"  of 
Centuries.  —  In  early  society,  military  burden  and  political 
privilege  always  tend  to  go  together;  and  at  Rome  this  new 
war  host  gradually  took  the  place  of  the  old  curiate  assembly 
for  political  purposes.     It  is  often  said  that  the  gain  to  the 


272  CONCLUSIONS  AS  TO  REGAL  ROME.  [§  297 

plebs  was  wholly  unforeseen;  but  if  the  arrangement  did 
originate  with  a  "tyranf  like  Servius,  he  probably  counted 
upon  the  new  political  weight  of  his  friends,  the  plebeians,  to 
reduce  the  patrician  power. 

At  all  events,  the  process  may  be  easily  understood  now. 
The  king  would  find  it  both  natural  and  convenient  to  refer 
questions  of  peace  or  war,  and  nominations  of  military  officers, 
to  this  gathering.  The  witnessing  and  sanctioning  of  wills 
just  before  a  battle,  too,  would  fall  to  the  centuries  rather  than 
to  the  curias.  So  gradually  arose  a  comitia  centuriata,  even  in 
peace.  The  curiate  assembly  of  patricians  remained  only  for 
religious  exercises  and  for  certain  formal  political  ends  of  little 
practical  moment.  The  change  probably  required  a  long  period 
of  time,  but  it  was  completed  in  the  regal  period  or  immediately 
afterward.^ 

297.   Aristocratic  Character  of  the  Later  Comitia  Centuriata.  — 

By  this  time  the  army  had  assumed  another  form,  but  the 
political  gathering  —  the  comitia  centuriata  —  had  crystallized 
in  the  original  shape.  This  gave  to  wealth,  and  therefore  to 
the  patricians,  a  great  advantage.  As  the  population  increased, 
the  poorer  classes  grew  faster  than  the  rich ;  but  they  gained 
no  more  political  weight,  because  the  number  of  centuries  was 
not  changed,  though  the  number  of  men  within  a  century  was. 
The  centuries  of  the  lower  classes  came  to  contain  many  more 
than  a  hundred  each,  while  those  of  the  knights  and  first  class 
contained  far  less;  but  each  century,  full  or  skeleton,  still 
counted  one  vote  in  the  comitia.  Thus  the  knights  and  the 
first  class  (ninety-eight  of  the  hundred  and  ninety-three  cen- 
turies), even  after  they  had  come  to  be  a  small  minority,  could 
outvote  all  the  rest.  They  still  voted  first,  too,  just  as  when 
they  stood  in  the  front  ranks  for  battle;  and  so  oftentimes 
they  must  have  settled  a  question  without  any  vote  at  all  by  the 
other  classes.     And  since  the  knights  and  the  first  class  must 

1  Moramaen  regards  the  change  as  resulting  from  the  expulsion  of  the  kings. 
Ihne  regards  that  expulsion,  on  the  other  hand,  as  an  aristocratic  movement. 


§  299]  OVERTHROW  OF  THE   KINGS.  273 

have  remained  largely  patrician,  it  is  clear  that  that  body  could 
still  control  legal  action  in  any  dispute  between  the  two  orders. 

298.  The  Plebeian  Gain.  —  None  the  less  it  was  a  great  gain 
when  the  position  of  each  individual  was  fixed  not  by  birth 
and  religion,  but  by  his  wealth.  The  first  great  barrier  was 
broken  down.  The  artificial  arrangement  of  the  centuries  still 
prevented  political  equality;  but  it  would  prove  easier  to  re- 
place the  comitia  of  centuries  by  a  true  popular  assembly  than 
it  had  been  for  the  non-tribesmen  to  win  their  way  to  this 
beginning  of  political  power. 

B.    Overthrow   of   the   Kings. 

299.  The  Older  and  Later  Kingship.  —  Probably  many  more 
than  seven  kings  ruled  at  Rome ;  and,  in  spite  of  the  legends, 
scholars  feel  confident  that  the  earliest  kingship  was  priestly 
and  that  the  military  features  grew  in  importance  later ;  that 
is,  "  Numa  must  have  come  before  Romulus."  The  last  three 
kings  very  possibly  were  Etruscan  conquerors  (note  to  §  274), 
and  the  expulsion  may  have  been  partly  the  result  of  a  Latin 
revival.  They  seem  also  to  have  been  "tyrants,"  supported 
for  a  while  by  the  non-citizen  class  against  the  patricians,  and 
the  expulsion  was  certainly  in  part  an  aristocratic  revolution. 
The  later  Romans  believed  that  the  last  Tarquin  oppressed  all 
classes  in  the  state,  and  that  the  cruel  deeds  of  his  son  finally 
roused  the  people  to  fury,  so  that  they  drove  the  family  from 
Rome,  abolished  kingship,  and  in  its  place  chose  two  consuls 
for  a  year.  This  revolution  is  ascribed  to  the  year  510  B.C.  — 
the  same  year  in  which  the  Peisistratids  were  finally  driven 
from  Athens ;  but  while  the  Greek  story  is  strictly  historical, 
the  Roman  is  mere  legend,  with  no  evidence  by  which  to  judge 
the  truth  of  its  details.  Certainly  these  details  contain  too 
many  absurdities  and  inconsistencies  for  us  to  accept  them 
as  history.^ 

1  See  Ihne,  Early  Rome,  79-81. 


274       CONCLUSIONS  AS  TO  REGAL  ROME.      [^  300 

300.  The  "Expulsion"  an  Aristocratic  Movement  and  a  Grad- 
ual Change.  —  The  later  Romans  hated  the  name  king  bitterly, 
and  the  feeling  was  created  largely  by  the  stories  of  Tarquin's 
cruelty;  but  probably  these  stories  were  the  inventions  of 
aristocratic  annalists  long  after  the  "expulsion."  Certainly 
"king"  did  not  at  once  become  a  detested  name.  At  Rome,  as 
at  Athens  (§§  107  and  117),  there  remained  a  king-priest  {rex 
sacrorum),  whose  wife  also  kept  the  title  of  regina  (queen) ; 
the  legends  themselves,  too,  represent  another  Tarquin  (Lucius 
Tarquinius  Collatinus)  as  one  of  the  first  two  consuls ;  nor  is 
there  any  evidence  that  at  first  these  consuls  ruled  only  for 
one  year.  All  that  we  really  know  is  that  in  prehistoric  times 
the  aristocratic  patricians  in  some  way  reduced  and  finally 
abolished  kingship.     As  Professor  Pelham  puts  it :  — 

"  The  struggle  was  doubtless  longer  and  sharper,  and  the  new  constitu- 
tion more  gradually  shaped,  than  tradition  would  have  us  believe.  Pos- 
sibly, too,  this  revolution  at  Rome  was  but  part  of  a  wide-spreading  wave 
of  change  in  Latium  and  central  Italy,  similar  to  that  which  in  Greece 
swept  away  the  old  heroic  monarchies." —  Outlines  of  Roman  History,  41. 

So,  too.  Professor  Seeley :  — 

"The  establishment  of  the  consulate  is  but  a  vague  tradition  with- 
out chronology.  The  later  Romans,  when  they  read  of  consuls,  could 
scarcely  avoid  thinking  of  annual  consuls,  such  as  they  themselves  were 
accustomed  to.  .^ .  .  [But]  when  we  look  closely  at  the  story  we  find 
that  there  is  absolutely  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  first  magistrates 
after  the  flight  of  Tarquin  held  office  for  only  one  year.  .  .  .  Collatinus 
seems  to  have  succeeded  by  hereditary  right ;  whether  or  not  he  was 
called  consul^  it  is  probable  that  his  term  of  office  was  not  yet  limited. 
[There  are  suggestions  in  the  legends  of  another  revolution  to  get  rid 
of  him.]  Then  perhaps  by  a  series  of  changes,  the  monarchy  shrank 
up  into  the  annual  consulate  of  later  times,  which  indeed  in  form  and 
ceremonial  always  continued  to  resemble  monarchy."  —  Introduction  to 
Political  Science,  233-234. 

Special  Reports.  —  1.  A  comparison  of  the  centuriate  organization 
with  Solon's  classes  (note  the  contrasts).  2.  Legends  connected  with 
the  expulsion  of  the  Tarquins :  i.e.  Lake  Regillus  ;  Brutus  and  his  sons  j 
Horatius  at  the  Bridge  ;  the  Porsena  stories. 


303]  THE  CONSULSHIP.  275 


VII.    EFFECTS    OF    THE    DECLINE    OF    KINGSHIP    ON    THE 
EXECUTIVE  —  THE  CONSULSHIP. 

301.  The  Consuls  and  the  Royal  Imperium.  —  Eome  modified 
rather  than  abolished  its  kingship.^  The  priestly  function 
and  the  sacred  name  rex  were  strictly  separated  from  the  ex- 
ecutive and  judicial  power ;  that  executive  office  became  more 
truly  elective;  it  was  divided  between  two  men,  and  their 
term  was  finally  limited  to  one  year.  But  for  that  year  the 
new  consuls  ^  were  "  kings,"  each  in  theory  holding,  nearly  in 
full,  the  old  imperium.  They  called  and  dissolved  assemblies 
at  will,  with  sole  right  of  proposing  measures,  nominating 
magistrates,  and  regulating  debate ;  they  filled  vacancies  in  the 
senate ;  they  ruled  the  city  and  commanded  in  war. 

302.  The  Chief  Limitations  in  Practice  were  the  following: 
either  consul  might  absolutely  forbid  or  cancel  any  act  of  the 
other ;  both  became  responsible  to  the  centuries  and  the  courts 
when  they  laid  down  their  office ;  and  their  short  term  made 
them  dependent  upon  the  advice  of  the  permanent  and  digni- 
fied senate,  against  whose  will  it  finally  became  practically 
impossible  for  them  to  act  in  important  matters. 

303.  Minor  Checks:  Independence  of  the  Quaestors  and  the 
Right  of  Appeal.  —  Two  other  limitations  quickly  followed. 

a.  The  kings  had  had  assistant  judges  and  treasurers,  called 
quaestors.  After  the  revolution,  these  officers  were  at  first  ap- 
pointed by  the  consuls;  but  after  447  b.c.  they  were  elected 
annually,  and  in  theory  they  became  wholly  independent  of 
consular  control.  In  future  time  the  power  of  the  consuls  was 
to  be  further  diminished  by  the  creation  of  other  officers  to 
take  over  other  parts  of  their  functions. 

1  A  people  of  marked  political  genius  (like  the  Romans  or  English)  do  not 
willingly  cut  loose  from  their  past,  but  grow  out  of  it. 

2  At  first  they  were  called  joint  praetors,  or  leaders  in  war ;  cf .  the 
Athenian  poiernarc^  (§  117). 


276  CONCLUSIONS  AS  TO   REGAL  ROME.  [§  304 

b.  The  kings  as  judges  had  possessed  power  of  life  and 
death,  without  appeal  unless  they  themselves  chose  to  consult 
the  people.  The  consuls  kept  this  power  in  the  field,  but,  in 
theory,  not  in  the  city.  One  of  the  early  consuls,  Valerius 
Publicola,  carried  a  law  that  an  appeal  must  be  allowed  to  the 
centuries  in  cases  of  condemnation  to  death.  This  Valerian 
LaWj  when  observed,  was  the  great  safeguard  of  the  citizens 
against  consular  tyranny ;  but  it  was  frequently  a  dead  letter 
and  had  to  be  many  times  reenacted  before  it  became  unques- 
tioned practice.  At  first,  moreover,  it  applied  only  to  patri- 
cians. 

304.  The  Final  Check :  the  Political  Temperance  of  the  People 
and  Leaders.  —  All  these  restrictions  upon  consular  power 
were  valid  only  through  the  force  of  public  opinion  and  the 
self-control  of  the  consuls.  While  in  office  the  consuls  were 
legally  responsible  to  no  one;  and  neither  of  them  could  be 
lawfully  checked  by  any  one  save  the  other,  even  if  he  broke 
all  customs  and  laws. 

This  held  good,  indeed,  as  to  the  term  of  office.  At  first,  in 
legal  theory,  the  consuls  voluntarily  abdicated  at  the  end  of 
the  year;  if  they  refused  to  lay  down  office,  their  acts  con- 
tinued to  be  valid.  Like  the  old  kings,  too,  they  themselves 
nominated  their  successors.  By  proposing  only  two  names  to 
the  centuries,  they  could  compel  the  election  of  their  nominees. 
Later,  the  centuries  secured  greater  freedom  of  election,  but 
their  choice  had  still  to  be  ratified :  the  old  curiate  assembly 
alone  could  confer  the  imperium,  and  the  consuls  could  refuse 
to  place  before  it  the  choice  of  the  centuries.  Commonly  they 
felt  constrained  to  submit  to  the  popular  will,  but  at  crises 
they  sometimes  resumed  their  older  power  and  even  refused 
to  permit  the  centuries  to  vote  for  undesirable  candidates,  or 
declined  to  record  votes  given  for  them.  Such  usurpation, 
however,  was  very  rare ;  and,  in  the  few  cases  when  the  con- 
suls did  resort  to  extreme  measures  of  this  kind,  the  deliber- 
ate judgment  of  the  people  seems  usually  to  have  indorsed 


§  307]  THE  DEBT  TO   REGAL   ROME.  277 

them.     The  fact  is  a  striking  evidence  of  political  moderation 
and  capacity. 

305.  The  Dictatorship :  a  Revival  of  the  Kingship  to  meet  a 
Crisis.  —  In  time  of  peril,  the  divided  consular  power,  with  its 
possibility  of  a  deadlock,  might  easily  be  fatal.  The  escape 
was  found  in  temporary  revivals  of  the  old  kingship  under  a 
new  name.  Either  consul,  after  consulting  the  senate,  without 
popular  vote,  might  appoint  a  dictator.  This  officer  was  abso- 
lute master  of  Rome,  save  that  his  term  of  office  could  not 
exceed  six  months.  The  Valerian  Law  became  invalid  against 
his  decisions ;  he  had  power  of  life  and  death  in  the  city  as  in 
the  army ;  and  at  the  expiration  of  his  term  he  was  not  legally 
responsible  for  his  acts.  He  could  not,  however,  nominate  a 
successor.  Except  for  this  and  for  the  limit  of  time,  he  was 
a  close  copy  of  the  old  king. 

VIII.    EFFECT  OF  THE   REVOLUTION  UPON  THE   SENATE. 

306.  The  Senate,  so  far  as  we  know,  was  not  directly  affected 
by  the  expulsion  of  the  kings ;  but  of  course  it  held  a  very 
different  relation  to  a  one-year  consul,  whose  highest  ambition 
would  be  to  get  finally  into  its  ranks,  from  that  it  had  held  to 
a  life-king  jealous  of  its  power.  Its  advice  grew  more  constant 
and  imperative,  until  it  became  the  real  directing  body  in  the 
state,  however  much  this  fact  was  obscured  by  the  imposing 
imperium  of  the  consuls. 

IX.  THE  DEBT  TO  REGAL  ROME. 

307.  The  contributions  of  earlier  Rome  to  the  republic  may 
be  summed  up :  — 

a.  The  Roman  city,  with  its  principle  of  absorption  and 

federation. 
6.  The  Roman  character  —  dignified,  legal-minded,  heroically 

devoted  to  the  state. . 


278  CONCLUSIONS  AS   TO   REGAL   ROME.  [§  307 

c.  A  religion  shaped  into  an  admirable  political  instrument. 

d.  The  family,  with  its  peculiar  patria  potestas. 

e.  The  corresponding  imjjerium  of  the  two  annual  consuls. 
/.  The  basing  of  political   privilege  upon   wealth   in   the 

comitia  centuriata. 

The  political  democracy  was  imperfect,  and  the  plebeians  had 
still  much  to  desire  in  social,  economic,  and  political  equality. 
This  is  the  key  to  the  history  of  the  early  republic. 


For  Further  Reading.  —  References  for  the  more  important  or  diffi- 
cult points  have  been  given  in  footnotes  or  by  Divisions. 

1.  For  Divisions  I.-V.  (Oldest  Roman  Society),  students  should  read 
also  Tighe,  chs.  ii.  and  iii.,  and  Fowler's  City  State,  chs.  ii.  and  iii.,  which 
was  referred  to  at  a  like  stage  in  Greek  history.  Granrud's  Boman  Con- 
stitutional History  is  an  excellent  handbook  for  all  constitutional  details, 
and  should  be  accessible  to  all  students.  Advanced  students  will  wish  to 
compare  in  full  the  complete  treatments  in  Mommsen,  bk.  i.  chs.  v.,  xi.,  xii., 
and  index,  and  in  Ihne's  Early  Borne,  chs.  v.-ix.,  and  History,  I.  ch.  xiii. 

2.  For  Division  VI,  (the  Early  Revolutions)  :  On  the  centuriate  organ- 
ization, Ihne,  Early  Borne,  132-140.  Advanced  students  will  consult 
Ihne's  and  Mommsen's  histories,  and  note  the  difference  between  their 
views.  As  usual,  there  is  a  brilliant  treatment  in  Coulanges,  360-371  and 
379-387.  Coulanges  (324-330)  has  also  an  interesting  chapter  showing 
how  the  legends  of  the  expulsion  of  the  kings  may  be  rationalized.  The 
discussion  in  Ihne's  History  is  more  scientific. 

3.  For  Division  VII. ,  advanced  students  may  compare  Mommsen,  bk.  ii, 
ch.  i.,  and  Ihne's  History,  bk.  ii.  ch.  i.,  or  Early  Borne,  ch.  x.-xii. 


CHAPTER  III. 

CLASS   STRUGGLES  IN   THE  REPUBLIC,    510-367  B.C. 
I.    CHARACTER   OF  THE   PERIOD. 

308.  The  First  Century  and  a  Half  of  the  Republic  was  a 

period  of  stern  internal  conflict  between  patricians  and  ple- 
beians. Torn  and  distracted  by  the  struggle,  Eome  made 
little  gain  externally,  and  indeed,  until  toward  the  close  of  the 
epoch,  lost  much  territory  she  had  held  under  the  kings. 

The  peculiar  mark  of  the  long  internal  struggle  was  the  ab- 
sence of  extreme  violence.  Compared  with  the  vehement  class 
conflicts  in  Greek  cities,  with  their  frequent  bloody  revolu- 
tions and  counter-revolutions,  the  contest  in  Kome  was  carried 
on  "  with  a  calmness,  deliberation,  and  steadiness  that  corre- 
sponded to  the  firm,  persevering,  sober,  practical  Roman  char- 
acter " ;  and  when  the  victory  of  the  plebs  was  once  won,  the 
result  was  correspondingly  complete  and  permanent. 

II.    THE   POSITION  OF  THE   CLASSES   AFTER  510  B.C. 

309.  Rome  becomes  a  Patrician  Oligarchy.  —  Tlie  overthrow  of 
the  kings  was  in  no  sense  a  democratic  movement.  It  left  Rome 
an  oligarchy,  and  depressed  the  plebs.  The  later  kings  had 
leaned  upon  the  lower  orders.  In  consequence,  they  had 
sought  to  strengthen  the  plebeians  by  grants  of  public  land, 
by  securing  them  justice,  and  possibly  by  aiding  them  in  the 
development  of  political  power.  The  aristocratic  revolution- 
ists may  have  bought  popular  support  at  first  by  some  super- 
ficial concessions,^  but  the  plebeians  soon  found  themselves  the 
losers  by  the  change,  politically  and  economically. 

1  Livy  says  that  plebeians  were  admitted  to  the  senate  to  fill  the  vacancies 
created  by  the  tyrants.    Mommsen  adopts  this  view,  and  speaks  as  if  they 

279 


280  CLASS   STRUGGLES   IN  THE  REPUBLIC.  [§  310 

310.  Political  Loss  to  the  Plebs.  —  No  direct  attack  was  made 
upon  their  political  rights,  it  is  true;  but  none  was  needed. 
The  plebeians  could  control  only  a  small  minority  of  votes  in 
the  assembly  of  the  centuries,  they  could  hold  no  office,  and 
they  had  no  way  even  to  get  a  desired  measure  considered. 
They  could  vote  at  best  only  upon  laws  proposed  by  patrician 
magistrates,  and  they  could  help  elect  only  patrician  officers 
who  had  been  nominated  by  other  patricians.  The  patrician 
senate,  too,  had  a  final  veto  upon  any  election  or  vote  of  the 
mixed  centuries,  and,  in  the  last  resort,  the  patrician  consuls 
could  always  fall  back  upon  the  patrician  augurs  to  prevent 
a  possible  plebeian  victory  by  an  appeal  to  religious  super- 
stition. Thus  the  immediate  political  loss  to  the  plebs  was 
very  real,  though  it  was  wholly  indirect.  So  far  as  the  mul- 
titude were  concerned,  the  selfish  despotism  of  a  jealous  class 
had  taken  the  place  of  the  enlightened  despotism  of  a  paternal 
king. 

311.  Loss  of  Standing  at  Law.  —  A  like  result  followed  in 
cases  at  law.  The  kings  had  found  it  to  their  interest  to  see 
justice  done  the  plebs,  but  now  law  became  again  exclusively 
a  patrician  possession,  guarded  by  religion.  It  was  unwritten, 
and  to  the  plebs  almost  unknown;  and  it  was  easy,  therefore, 
in  any  dispute  with  a  plebeian,  for  a  patrician,  before  patrician 
judges,  to  take  shameful  advantage  of  its  intricacies  and  "  fic- 
tions." 

312.  Economic  Loss  and  Danger  to  the  Plebs.  —  The  proof  as 
to  economic  conditions  is  not  so  clear;  but  it  appears  probable 
that  the  victorious  patricians,  with  their  tremendous  political 
advantages,  sought  to  reduce  the  mass  of  free  but  poor  ple- 
beians to  economic  slavery  —  to  bring  them  back  again  to  the 
position  of  clients  dependent  upon  patrician  patrons.^     The 


continued  to  sit  there,  but  Ihne  successfully  controverts  any  such  theory 
{.History,  1. 136-138,  and,  better,  Early  Rome,  127-130). 
1  Coulanges,  387-389. 


§  312]      POSITION  OF  THE   CLASSES  AI^ER   510  B.C.  281 

savage  laws  regarding  debt  ^  offered  opportunity.  The  plebe- 
ians were  more  liable  than  formerly  to  fall  into  the  clutches 
of  the  law,  because  the  patricians  now  robbed  them  of  their 
part  in  the  public  grazing  lands,  and  because  of  the  greater 
peril  from  hostile  invasion  to  which  Koman  farmers  were 
exposed  for  a  time  after  the  expulsion  of  the  kings. 

a.  When  Rome  conquered  a  hostile  city,  even  if  she  did  not  destroy  it, 
she  took  away  a  half  or  a  third  of  its  territory.  The  kings  sometimes 
settled  colonies  of  landless  plebeians  upon  this  land  (cf.  Athenian  cle- 
ruchies)  ;  sometimes  part  of  the  plow  land  was  divided  between  the 
soldiers  who  had  won  it ;  but  the  greater  portion  of  such  new  territory 
became  a  common  pasture  ground.  It  belonged  to  the  state,  and  a  small 
tax  was  paid  for  the  right  to  graze  cattle  upon  it. 

Strictly,  even  then  only  the  patricians  had  the  right  to  its  use,  but  the 
kings  had  extended  the  privilege  to  the  plebs  also.  The  patricians  now 
resumed  their  exclusive  right,  and  so  reduced  to  painful  straits  the  poorer 
plebeians  who  had  eked  out  a  scanty  income  from  their  small  farms  by 
such  aid.  To  make  matters  worse,  the  patrician  officers  ceased  to  collect 
the  grazing  tax.  Thus  the  public  land  was  enjoyed  by  the  patricians 
as  private  property,  without  purchase  or  tax,  while,  as  a  result,  the  tax 
on  plebeian  farms  had  to  be  increased,  to  supply  the  deficiency  in  the 
treasury.  At  the  same  time,  the  sending  out  of  colonies  of  landless  ple- 
beians was  stopped,  partly  because  little  land  was  won  now  for  a  long 
time,  and  partly  because  the  patricians  insisted  upon  keeping  for  them- 
selves any  that  was  secured. 2 

6.  The  conditions  of  warfare  also  bore  more  heavily  upon  the  small 
farmer  than  upon  the  great  landlord.  He  was  called  away  frequently  to 
battle  ;  he  had  no  servants  to  till  his  fields  in  his  absence ;  and  his  pos- 
sessions were  more  exposed  to  hostile  forays  than  were  the  more  strongly 
fortified  holdings  of  his  greater  neighbor.  Thus  he  might  return  to 
find  his  crops  ruined  by  delay  or  his  homestead  in  ashes,  and  he  could 
no  longer  apply  to  the  king  —  the  patron  of  the  plebs  —  for  the  old 
assistance. 

1  Where  there  were  several  creditors  they  could  cut  up  the  body  of  the 
debtor  if  they  chose.  This  provision  was  found  even  in  the  Twelve  Tables 
(§  321),  and  perhaps  gave  the  suggestion  for  Shylock's  vengeance  in  the 
Merchant  of  Venice.  This  interpretation  of  the  passage  in  the  Twelve  Tables 
is  disputed,  however,  by  some  recent  scholars. 

2  An  excellent  brief  treatment  of  the  public  land  is  given  in  Tighe,  82-88. 
See,  too,  Mommsen,  I.  343-346. 


282  CLASS   STRUGGLES   IN  THE   REPUBLIC.  [§  313 

313..  The  Result :  a  Contest  between  the  Orders.  —  Thus,  more 
and  more  the  plebeians  were  forced  to  borrow  tax  money  from 
patrician  money  lenders  or  to  get  advances  of  seed  corn  and 
cattle  from  a  neighboring  patrician  landlord.  The  debtor's 
land  and  person  were  both  mortgaged  for  payment;  and,  on 
failure  to  pay,  the  patrician  courts  gave  the  creditor  possession. 
The  plebeian  debtor  became  a  client,  or  serf ;  or,  if  he  refused 
to  accept  this  result,  he  was  cast  into  a  dungeon,  loaded  with 
chains,  and  torn  with  stripes. 

Against  this  condition  the. plebeians  rose  in  a  struggle  that 
filled  a  century  and  a  half,  and  they  came  soon  to  claim  not 
only  economic,  but  also  social  and  political  equality :  that  is, 
their  share  in  public  lands ;  right  of  intermarriage  with  patri- 
cians, and  an  equal  knowledge  of  laws;  and  eligibility  to  all 
offices,  even  religious  offices  of  political  value.  It  is  roughly 
correct  to  say  that  the  first  fifty  years  went  to  a  struggle  for 
economic  security;  but  that,  finding  this  ineffectual,  the 
plebeians  devoted  themselves  for  the  next  hundred  years  to 
securing  political  rights.^ 

III.   STEPS  IN  THE   STRUGGLE. 

A.   The  Tribunes  of  the  Plebs. 

314.  The  First  Secession  of  the  Plebs.  —  In  ten  chapters  Livy 
gives  a  graphic  story  of  the  first  clash  between  the  orders.^ 

The  plebs,  driven  to  despair,  refuse  to  serve  in  a  war  against  the 
Volscians,  until  the  consul  wins  them  over  by  freeing  all  debtors  from 
prison.     But  when  the  army  returns  victorious,  the  other  consul  refuses 

1  Two  views  exist  as  to  the  original  uprising.  The  older  and  more  common 
one  holds  that  the  plebeians  revolted  to  escape  being  enslaved  for  debt  almost 
as  a  class.  The  latter  holds  that  in  so  simple  a  society  so  much  debt  was 
impossible,  and  that  the  plebeians  rose  to  secure  protection  against  the  arbi- 
trary despotism  of  patrician  magistrates  in  individual  cases.  See  Momm- 
sen  (I.  345-346)  for  the  first  view;  Ihne  presents  the  second  idea  (Early 
Rome,  129,  141, 142,  and  History,  I.  147-149). 

2  Dionysius  gives  it  in  sixty-eight  longer  chapters.  There  is  a  good  abstract 
in  Ihne,  1. 144-149,  and  a  longer  one  in  Lewis,  II.  73-84. 


§  316]  THE   TRIBUNES   OF  THE   PLEBS.  283 

to  recognize  his  colleague's  acts ;  he  arrests  the  debtors  again,  and  enforces 
the  law  with  merciless  cruelty.  On  a  renewal  of  the  war,  the  betrayed 
plebs  again  decline  to  fight;  but  finally  Manius  Valerius  (of  the  great 
'•Valerian  house  that  loved  the  people  well")  is  made  dictator,  and  him 
they  trust.  Victory  again  follows;  but  Valerius  is  unable  to  get  the 
consent  of  the  senate  to  his  proposed  changes  in  the  law.  So  the  plebeian 
army,  still  in  array  outside  the  gates,  rises  in  revolt  and  marches  away  to 
a  hill  across  the  Anio,  some  three  miles  from  Rome,  where,  they  declare, 
they  will  build  a  Rome  of  their  own.  This  would  have  meant  the  con- 
quest of  both  the  old  and  new  cities  by  neighboring  foes ;  so  a  compromise 
is  patched  up,  and  the  plebs  return  from  the  "Sacred  Mount." 

315.  The  Tribunes  and  their  Veto,  493  B.C. — The  letter  of  the 
law  was  not  changed,  but  the  plebeians  had  secured  means 
to  prevent  its  execution  in  any  given  case.  Two  plebeian 
tribunes,  it  was  agreed,  should  be  chosen  each  year ;  the  person 
of  these  officers  was  declared  inviolable,  and  a  curse  was  in- 
voked upon  the  man  who  should  interfere  with  their  acts. 
For  the  protection  of  their  class,  they  were  given  a  portion  of 
the  old  consular  veto;  that  is,  they  could  absolutely  stop  any 
magistrate  in  any  executive  act,  and  so  prevent  the  arrest  or 
punishment  of  any  individual  plebeian.  But  this  veto  could 
be  exercised  only  within  the  city  and  by  the  tribunes  in  person.^ 
Hence  a  tribune's  door  was'  left  always  unlocked,  so  that  a 
plebeian  in  trouble  might  have  instant  access. 

316.  Subsequent  Growth  of  the  Tribuneship.  —  In  consequence 
of  later  disturbances,  the  number  of  tribunes  was  increased 
to  five,  and  finally  to  ten,  so  as  to  afford  more  efficient  pro- 
tection in  all  needful  cases.  Their  power  also  grew,  until 
they  came  to  forbid  not  only  executive  acts,  but  likewise  the 
putting  of  a  vote  in  the  centuries  or  in  the  senate,  so  that 
they  could  bring  the  whole  government  to  a  standstill. 

"  Absolute  prohibition  was  in  the  most  stern  and  abrupt  fashion 
opposed  to  absolute  command;  and  the  quarrel  was  settled  (?)  by  recog- 
nizing and  regulating  the  discord." — Mommsen,  I.  354,  355. 

1  It  is  notable  that  this  arrangement  was  not  established  by  law  but  by  a 
treaty  between  the  two  orders,  as  if  they  had  been  separate  states.  (See 
Ihne,  Early  Rome,  142,  143.) 


284  CLASS   STRUGGLES  IN  THE   REPUBLIC.  [;§  317 

Besides  this  power  of  impeding  action  in  the  state  (which 
was  their  characteristic  function),  the  tribunes  came  to  have 
also  a  terrible  judicial  power.  It  seems  probable  that  even 
before  the  treaty  of  the  Sacred  Mount  the  plebs  had  had  their 
own  chosen  rulers  to  act  in  plebeian  gatherings  as  the  consuls 
did  in  the  comitia  of  the  centuries  —  proposing  rules  and  im- 
peaching offenders  against  them.^  Now  the  plebeian  tribunes 
came  to  accuse  in  this  way  the  patricians  also,  —  even  consuls, 
— and  to  arrest  and  fine  them,  with  appeal  only  to  the  assembly 
of  the  plebeians,  where  patricians  could  expect  little  favor. 

B.   Rise  of  the  Plebeian  Assembly. 

317.  Ancient  Organization  of  the  Plebeians. — It  is  plain  that 
the  plebeians  must  have  possessed  some  such  organization  as 
has  just  been  referred  to,  with  regular  meetings  and  officers,  or 
they  could  never  have  waged  the  long  constitutional  struggle 
in  so  orderly  a  manner ;  but  the  matter  is  very  obscure.  Proba- 
bly the  organization  was  based  upon  certain  local  divisions 
called  "tribes."  At  some  early  date,  the  city  and  territory 
of  Rome  had  been  divided  into  twenty-one  wards,  or  tribes,^ 
for  military  taxation  and  for  the  levy.  The  plebs,  in  the  ab- 
sence of  a  complete  gentile  organization,  seem  to  have  availed 
themselves  of  these  local  units.  In  some  way,  a  plebeian  "as- 
sembly of  tribes"  grew  up  and  became  a  real  governing  body 
for  the  plebeians,  though  still  without  any  sanction  from  the 
state. ^ 

318.  This  Plebeian  Assembly  wins  Recognition  in  the  State. 

—  The  plebeian  officers  of  the  "  tribes  "  had  now  been  put 
alongside  the  patrician  consuls.      The  next  logical  step  was 

1  See  Ihne,  History,  I.  183-187,  or  Early  Rome,  143,  144. 

2  These  local  tribes  of  course  had  no  connection  with  the  three  blood  tribes. 
(Cf.  the  tribes  of  Cleisthenes,  §  135.)  This  institution  also  is  attributed  to 
Servius. 

8  For  conflicting  views  as  to  the  original  nature  of  the  assembly,  see  Ihne, 
Early  Rome,  144-147,  or  History,  I.  183-185,  206,  207,  and  Mommsen,  I.  359 
360. 


§  319]  RISE   OF  THE   PLEBEIAN  ASSEMBLY.  285 

to  set  the  plebeian  assembly  alongside  the  mixed  centuriate 
assembly.  The  patricians  seem  to  have  provoked  the  strug- 
gle, by  trying  to  control  the  election  of  tribunes,  —  perhaps 
by  bringing  it  into  the  assembly  of  the  centuries,^  —  and  by 
endeavoring  to  prevent  the  plebeians  from  holding  their  sepa- 
rate meetings,  which  were  now  becoming  a  threat  to  the  patrician 
state.  A  bitter  contest  of  twenty  years  was  closed  in  471  b.c. 
by  the  victory  of  the  plebs.  The  tribune  Publilius  Volero 
secured  the  consent  of  the  senate  to  a  decree  known  as  the 
Publilian  Laiv.  This  legalized  the  old  plebeian  organization. 
It  guaranteed  to  the  plebeian  tribal  assembly  the  right  to  elect 
the  tribunes  and  to  pass  decrees  (plebiscita)  which  should  have 
the  force  of  law  upon  members  of  the  plebs.  This  power  was 
soon  to  be  extended  so  that  the  decrees  of  the  plebeian  assem- 
bly should  become  equal  to  those  of  the  comitia  centuriata  in 
all  matters  (see  the  Horatian  Law,  §§  322-323). 

319.  The  Result  a  Double  State ;  Violence  over  Agrarian  Ques- 
tions.^—  Thus  the  first  struggle  of  the  plebs  for  admission  into 
the  state  had  set  up  instead  a  double  state  —  a  plebeian  state 
over  against  the  patrician  state,  each  with  its  own  assembly 
and  leaders,  with  no  arbiter  between  the  two  and  no  check 
upon  civil  war  except  mutual  moderation.  The  device  was 
clumsy,  and  could  not  have  been  worked  at  all  by  a  people  of 
low  political  capacity.  Even  with  the  Romans,  it  led  during 
the  next  few  years  to  violence,  both  legal  and  illegal.  Street 
fights  between  the  orders  took  place;  consuls  and  leading 
patricians  were  driven  into  banishment,  and  the  tribune  Genu- 
cius  was  assassinated  by  patrician  daggers.  Spurius  Cassius, 
the  first  patrician  to  dare  espouse  the  cause  of  the  people,  fell 
a  victim  to  his  order.  He  had  served  Rome  gloriously  in  war 
and  in  diplomacy;    but  now,  when  as  consul  he  proposed  a 

1  For  theories  as  to  the  election  of  tribunes  just  after  493  B.C.,  see  Ihne, 
History,  1. 146  and  184-187.  Advanced  students  can  look  up  the  vexed  question 
in  Mommsen' a  Forschungen,  I.  185  ff. 

2  Mommsen,  I.  354r-361. 


286  CLASS   STRUGGLES   IN  THE   REPUBLIC.  [§  320 

reform  in  the  selfish  patrician  administration  of  the  public 
lands,  the  patricians  accused  him  of  aiming  at  tyranny,  and 
he  was  put  to  death  (according  to  one  story,  by  the  simple 
judgment  of  his  father).  In  like  manner,  two  other  citizens, 
Spurius  Maelius,  and,  later  (384  b.c),  Manlms,  who  had  saved 
the  Capitol  itself  from  the  Gauls  (§  330),  fell  before  like  accu- 
sations when  they  attempted  to  relieve  the  distress  of  the 
people.^  None  the  less,  the  plebeians  made  some  small  gains 
even  in  the  first  years.  Some  colonies  of  poor  citizens  were 
established  on  the  public  lands,  and  in  466  b.c.  the  Aventine 
district  was  parceled*  out  into  building  lots  for  landless  plebe- 
ians in  the  city.  The  next  important  step,  however,  requires  a 
separate  section. 

C.   The  Decemvirs.^ 

320.  The  Plebs  demand  Written  Laws ;  the  Two  Boards  of 
Decemvirs.  —  In  462,  the  assembly  of  the  tribes,  at  the*  sugges- 
tion of  their  tribune  Terentilius,  asked  for  the  appointment  of 
a  commission  to  reduce  the  laws  to  writing.  This  reasonable 
demand  aroused  a  furious  patrician  opposition ;  but  after  ten 
years'  agitation  it  was  agreed  to  set  aside  both  consuls  and 
tribunes  for  a  year,  and  to  intrust  the  government  to  a  board 
of  ten  dictators  (decemvirs),  who  should  codify  the  laws.  Both 
plebeians  and  patricians  were  eligible  to  the  office,  but  the 
patricians  secured  all  the  places  in  the  election  in  451  b.c. 
The  work  was  not  completed,  however;  and  the  next  year 
Appius  Claudius,  one  of  the  first  decemvirs,  joined  the  ple- 
beian party  and  secured  his  own  reelection  with  several  plebeian 
colleagues. 

1  Special  reports  upon  these  stories  and  upon  that  of  Coriolanus  and  his 
banishment.  The  Maelius  story  is  noteworthy  for  its  connection  with  the 
Cincinnatus  legend.  Mommsen  discredits  much  of  all  these  anecdotes.  It  is 
possible,  but  not  probable,  that  these  men  were  demagogues  aiming  at  regal 
power. 

2  Cf .  the  Athenian  demands,  §  124.  The  story  of  Claudius  and  Virginius  has 
become  so  classic  in  literature  that  it  should  be  known  by  the  student.  But 
the  criticism  briefly  indicated  in  §§  321-322  is  based  upon  the  views  of  all  criti- 
cal scholars ;  see  Ihne,  I.  192-199,  and  Early  Rome,  175. 


§  322]  THE   DECEMVIRS.  287 

321.  The  Patrician  Counter-Revolution.  —  From  this  time  the 
story  becomes  obscure  and  contradictory.  It  seems  probable 
that  the  patricians  put  Claudius  to  death  as  a  traitor  to  their 
order ;  and  that  they  then  restored  the  consulship,  but  refused 
to  restore  the  tribuneship  —  perhaps  on  the  ground  that  writing 
down  the  laws  had  made  that  office  unnecessary.  Moreover, 
they  added  some  harsh  laws  to  the  first  decemvir  code,  making 
up  in  all  the  famous  Twelve  Tables}  Later  patrician  inventions 
obscure  all  this,  and  represent  the  overthrow  of  the  decemvirs 
as  the  work  of  a  plebeian  rising  against  Claudius,  who,  it  was 
said,  claimed  the  free  maid  Virginia  as  a  slave  girl. 

322.  Plebeian  Secession  and  Final  Gains.  —  A  revolt  certainly 
took  place,  but  it  was  directed  against  the  usurping  patricians. 
Once  more  the  plebeians  rose  in  arms  and  withdrew  to  the 
Sacred  Hill  to  secure  their  rights.  As  a  result,  besides  the 
written  law  of  the  Twelve  Tables,  the  tribunes  were  restored, 
and  even  given  seats  outside  the  senate  door,  whence  they 
could  shout  out  their  veto  upon  any  action  by  that  body ;  the 
old  Valerian  right  of  appeal  in  capital  cases  was  extended  to 
plebeians  also ;  and  the  plebeian  assembly,  somewhat  modified, 
was  solemnly  recognized  as  a  sovereign  assembly  of  the  Roman 
people,  able  legally  to  bind  the  wliole  people  by  its  decisions, 
subject,  of  course,  like  the  centuriate  assembly,  to  the  senate's 
veto. 

This  new  comitia  tributa  was  soon  to  become  the  most  im- 
portant of  the  popular  assemblies.  It  was  at  this  time  made  to 
consist  of  all  landowners,  —  patricians  and  plebeians,  —  organ- 
ized in  territorial  "  tribes."  Each  tribe  voted  as  a  unit,  and, 
in  determining  its  vote,  each  man  within  it  had  an  equal  voice, 
so  that  the  plebeians  held  an  overwhelming  control.  The  old 
tribal  assembly,  of  plebeians  only,  is  known  after  this  as  the 
"  council  of  the  plebs  "  ;  it  contained  all  plebeians,  landowners 
or  not,  but  it  ceased  now  to  have  any  political  importance. 

These  two  new  points  regarding  the  appeal  and  the  assembly 

1  Special  report:  Mommsen,  I.  364;  Tighe,  9&-98. 


288  CLASS   STRUGGLES  IN  THE   REPUBLIC.  [§323 

of  tribes  were  embodied  in  the   Valerio-Horatian  law  of  449) 
so-called  from  the  consuls  of  that  year. 

323.  Significance  of  the  Result.  —  The  real  advance  by  the 
plebs  lay  in  putting  the  decrees  of  the  comitia  tributa  on  a  level 
with  the  laws  of  the  centuriate  assembly.  The  growing  ple- 
beian state  had  now  won  full  equality  with  the  patrician  state. 
There  remained  to  fuse  the  two.  For  this,  the  new  power 
of  the  plebs  was  an  efficient  instrument.  Four  years  later 
(445  B.C.),  a  plebiscite,  sanctioned  by  the  senate,  legalized 
mixed  marriages  between  plebeians  and  patricians,  so  providing 
for  the  gradual  social  fusion  of  the  two  orders.  In  the  same 
year  began  the  last  but  longest  stage  of  the  conflict — an 
eighty-eight  years'  struggle  for  admission  to  the  consulate, 
that  is,  for  the  political  fusion  of  the  orders. 

D.    Admission  to  the  Consulship. 

324.  The  First  Step :  Creation  of  Consular  Tribunes.— A  pleb- 
iscite of  445  B.C.  decreed  that  the  people  be  allowed  to  elect  a 
plebeian  for  one  of  the  consuls.  This  was  evaded  by  the  sen- 
ate. That  body,  however,  yielded  to  a  compromise.  It  was 
resolved  to  elect  no  consuls,  but  instead  to  choose  military 
tribunes  with  consular  power  —  this  office  to  be  open  to  men  of 
either  order. 

325.  Continued  Patriciaij  Resistance.  —  But  the  patricians  had 
not  given  up.  They  had  "  saved  the  office  of  consul  from 
pollution,"  and  they  fell  back  on  two  shrewd  devices  to  cheat 
the  plebs  for  a  time  of  what  remained  of  their  victory. 

a.  With  the  old  stronghold  threatened,  they  prepared  an 
inner  fortress  into  which  they  could  retire.  A  new  patrician 
office  was  created  to  take  over  the  more  sacred  and  more  im- 
portant portion  of  the  consuls'  duty :  two  censors  were  added 
for  each  five-year  period,  for  moral  oversight  and  control. 
They  exercised  very  important  powers :  they  revised  the  lists 
of  citizens  and  of  the  senate,  and  appointed  to  vacancies  in  the 


ADMISSION  TO  THE   CONSULSHIP.  289 

latter  body;  by  their  simple  order,  too,  they  could  exclude  a 
citizen  from  the  list,  or  degrade  a  senator.^ 

b.  But  the  patricians  had  not  really  surrendered  the  con- 
sulship. It  had  been  reserved  to  the  senate  to  decide  each 
year  whether  consuls  or  consular  tribunes  should  be  elected. 
This  power  was  used  to  secure  the  election  of  consuls  (always 
patrician,  of  course)  twenty  times  out  of  the  next  thirty-five 
years.  Still  further,  when  consular  tribunes  were  to  be 
chosen,  the  patrician  influence  in  the  centuries,  together  with 
their  advantages  in  manipulating  auspices  (Mommsen,  I.  377), 
saved  the  election  to  their  order  every  time  for  almost  half  a 
century. 

326.  The  Final  Victory  of  the  Plebs :  the  Licinian  Rogations, 
367  B.C.  —  In  400,  399,  and  396  b.c,  however,  the  plebeians  won 
the  elections,  and  thereafter  never  lost  ground.  -  The  invasion 
of  the  Gauls  in  390  b.c.  (§  330)  set  aside  party  struggle  for  a 
time ;  but  in  377  b.c.  began  the  final  campaign.  The  losses  in 
war  seem,  to  have  borne  hard  upon  the  poorer  plebeians,  and  to 
have  made  them  more  anxious  for  economic  than  for  political 
reform.  However,  the  wealthier  leaders,  already  connected 
with  patrician  families  by  marriage  and  looking  forward  to 
personal  political  promotion,  united  the  whole  plebeian  body 
on  a  group  of  demands.  These  were  proposed  by  the  tribune 
Licinius  Stolo,  and  are  known  as  the  Licinian  Rogations. 

The  three  most  important  were :  (1)  that  the  ofiice  of  consul 
be  restored,  one  consul  at  least  always  to  be  a  plebeian ;  (2)  that 
no  one  citizen  should  hold  more  than  five  hundred  jugera  (an 
acre  is  nearly  two  jugera)  of  the  common  lands  in  inclosure,  or 
pasture  upon  the  open  public  lands  more  than  one  hundred 
cattle  and  five  hundred  sheep;    (3)    that  payment  of  debts 

i-On  the  censors,  read  Ihne,  Early  Rome,  184-189.  Either  censor,  quite  in 
accord  with  Roman  genius,  could  veto  action  by  the  other.  Their  tremendous 
power  was  used  with  moderation  and  not  to  any  considerable  degree  for  party 
ends.  The  new  office  was  needed,  no  doubt,  in  any  case.  It  is  an  excellent 
illustration  of  the  tendency  to  "  differentiation  of  function "  that  marks 
political  development ;  but  it  came  at  just  this  time  for  the  special  reason  noted. 


290  CLASS  STRUGGLES  IN  THE  REPUBLIC.  [§327 

might  be  deferred  for  three  years,  and  that  interest  already 
paid  should  be  deducted  from  the  principal. 

This  last  measure  could  only  be  excused  from  its  necessity ; 
but  the  land  acts,  it  should  be  understood,  were  not  confisca- 
tion. Like  the  earlier  attempts  of  Spurius  Cassius,  they  were 
an  effort  to  rescue  what  was  legally  and  morally  the  property 
of  all  from  patrician  squatters. 

Ten  years  of  bitter  wrangling  followed.  The  plebs  reelected 
their  tribune  and  passed  the  rogations  anew  each  year;  the 
senate  vetoed  them ;  the  tribunes  forbade  all  elections  of 
patrician  magistrates  and  left  the  state  without  a  government, 
though,  in  the  peril  of  an  invasion,  they  subsequently  receded 
from  this  extreme  ground;  the  patricians  offered  to  concede 
the  economic  demands,  hoping  thus  to  buy  off  the  poorer  ple- 
beians; but  the  able  leadership  of  Licinius  held  the  party 
together  to  insist  on  the  full  programme ;  and  in  367  b.c.  the 
senate  gave  way  and  the  rogations  became  law. 

327.  Political  Fusion  Completed,  367-300  B.C.  —  The  long 
struggle  was  practically  over,  and  the  body  of  the  patricians 
soon  accepted  the  result  with  good  grace.  It  is  characteristic 
of  their  political  sense  that  they  made  no  attempt  at  counter- 
revolution. Just  at  first  they  tried  again  to  save  something 
from  the  wreck  by  instituting  a  third,  and  patrician,  praetor- 
consul  —  who  was  now  called  the  praetor  —  for  supreme  judi- 
cial control  in  the  city ;  but  all  such  devices  were  in  vain.^ 
Plebeian  consuls  could  nominate  other  plebeian  oificers. 
Plebeians  had  already  won  admission  to  the  quaestorship ; 
now  they  successively  became  dictator  in  356  b.c,  censor  in 
351  B.C.,  and  praetor  in  337  b.c.  In  300  b.c.  even  the  sacred 
colleges  of  pontiffs  and  augurs  were  thrown  open.  Appoint- 
ments to  the  senate  were  commonly  made  now  from  those  who 

1  The  consul  had  had  three  functions,  religious,  civil,  and  military.  As  the 
plebs  gained  ground,  the  patricians  first  gave  the  religious  duties  to  the  censor, 
and  now  the  chief  civil  powers  to  the  praetor,  intending  to  share  with  the  plebs 
only  the  military  office. 


§327]  ADMISSION  TO  THE   CONSULSHIP.  291 

had  held  office,  and  so  that  body  also  finally  became  plebeian; 
or,  rather,  the  old  distinction  died  out  after  the  year  300  b.c, 
and  for  practical,  and  especially  for  political,  purposes  is  no 
more  heard  of  .^ 

FoK  Further  Heading. — Mommsen,  I.  341-394;  lime,  I.  127-152, 
175-226,  255-262,  302-334,  and  Early  Borne,  132-151  and  165-190. 

1  It  is  not  uncommon  to  say  that  the  struggle  lasted  until  the  Hortensian 
Law  (see  §  345  c),  but  that  reform  had  reference  to  an  altogether  new  aristo- 
cratic movement  and  had  little  connection  with  the  old  plebeian-patrician  con- 
test. Some  writers  wish  to  regard  the  Eupatrids  at  Athens  as  equivalent  to 
Roman  patricians.  The  name  suggests  such  a  comparison.  In  that  case,  the 
Solonian  reform  would  have  consisted  largely  in  admitting  the  plebeians  into 
the  Eupatrid  organization.  There  is  something  to  be  said  for  this  view,  but 
our  knowledge  is  too  scanty  to  allow  us  to  accept  it  against  the  statements 
of  the  ancient  writers,  who  regarded  the  nou-Eupatrids  as  mainly  Attic 
tribesmen. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE  UNIFICATION   OP  ITALY,   367-266   B.C. 

L     EARLIER  BEGINNINGS— BEFORE   867  B.C. 

328.   Gains  in  the  Regal  Period,  and  the  Reaction  to  449  B.C.  — 

Details  of  the  early  wars  are  all  colored  by  later  patriotic 

invention,^  but  the  general  trend  of 
events  is  fairly  clear.  Under  the 
kings  Eome  had  conquered  widely, 
but  after  510  b.c.  the  Latin  towns 
became  independent  again  and 
much  territory  also  was  lost  to 
the  Etruscans.  For  the  next  sixty 
years,  indeed,  Rome  fought  for 
life,  —  hostile  Etruscan,  Volscian, 
and  Sabine  armies  appearing  often 
under  her  very  walls.  In  493  b.c, 
it  is  true,  the  Latin  League  was 
again  bound  to  Rome  by  treaty  on  equal  terms,  and  so  an  im- 
portant bulwark  provided  against  the  Yolscians  and  Aequians 
of  the  southern  hills ;  ^  but  the  saving  forces  in  these  critical 
years  were  due  neither  to  Rome's  diplomacy  nor  valor,  but  to 
certain  unconscious  allies  who  broke  the  threatening  Etruscan 
power, —  Gauls  from  the  north,  Samnites  in  Campania,  and 
the  great  tyrants  of  Syracuse  who  just  at  this  time  (§  217) 
shattered  the  Etruscan  naval  superiority. 


1  Special  reports :  the  legends  of  Coriolanus,  Cincinnatus,  and  Camillus, 
with  modern  criticisms ;  the  Roman  "  triumph." 

2  This  important  treaty,  and  another  just  after  with  the  Hernicans,  are 
ascribed  to  Spurius  Cassius  (§  319). 

292 


§  330]  PROGRESS  BEFORE  367  B.C.  293 

329.  The  Slow  Gain  after  449  B.C.  —  After  the  reforms  of  the 
decemviral  period  (when  the  bitterest  internal  dissensions  were 
past)  Kome  began  to  make  slow  gains  of  territory.  Insensibly 
she  became  again  the  president  and  real  mistress  of  the  Latin 
League ;  but  still  it  was  not  until  396  e.g.,  after  fourteen  long 
wars,  that  she  subdued  Few,  her  ancient  Etruscan  rival,  only 
a  few  hours'  walk  from  her  gates. ^ 

330.  A  Brief  Interruption :  Rome  sacked  by  the  Gauls,  390  b.c. 

—  Six  years  later  the  city  was  again  in  peril  of  annihilation. 
A  horde  of  Gauls,  under  the  leader  Brennus,  who  had  already 
overrun  Etruria,  utterly  defeated  the  Koman  army  at  the 
Allia  (twelve  miles  from  the  walls)  and  cut  it  off  from  the 
city.  Fortunately,  the  undisciplined  barbarians  squandered 
three  days  in  pillage,  and  so  gave  the  Eomans  time  to  save  the 
state.  The  sacred  fire  was  hastily  removed,  the  helpless  in- 
habitants fled,  and  a  small  garrison,  under  the  soldier  Marcus 
Manlius  (§  319),  undertook  the  defense  of  the  Capitoline  cita- 
del. The  Gauls  sacked  the  rest  of  the  city  without  resistance, 
and  held  it  seven  months;  but  no  doubt  their  ill  regulated 
host  was  ravaged  by  the  deadly  malaria  of  the  Roman  plain 
(which  has  more  than  once  been  Rome's  best  protection),  and 
in  any  case  they  had  little  skill  or  patience  for  a  regular  siege ; 
so,  finally,  they  withdrew,  on  the  payment  of  an  immense 
ransom.^ 

Rome  recovered  rapidly,  and  the  slow  territorial  growth 
up  to  this  time  contrasts  strikingly  with  the  swift  advance 
that  was  to  come  in  the  next  hundred  years.  The  difference 
was  due  mainly  to  the  difference  in  internal  conditions.  The 
long  strife  of  classes  closed  in  367  b.  c.  The  process  of  amalgor 
mation  that  had  originally  fused  the  three  separate  hill  towns  into 

1  Rome  began  here  the  merciless  and  criminal  policy  which  she  was  to  show 
toward  many  rival  capitals  in  time  to  come,  by  exterminating  the  population 
and  laying  waste  the  site  of  the  city. 

2  Special  reports :  the  sack  of  the  city ;  the  geese  of  the  capitol ;  Brennus 
and  his  sword  at  the  scales ;  the  later  fiction  of  the  Roman  victory,  to  save 
Roman  pride. 


294  THE  UNIFICATION  OF   ITALY.  [§  331 

the  patrician  state  had  at  length  fused  this  patrician  and  the  newer 
plebeian  state  into  one  Roman  people  ;  and  now  this  united  Rome 
twmed  to  her  proper  work  of  uniting  Italy. 

II.     THE  REAL  ADVANCE,   367-266  B.C. 

331.  Latium  and  Southern  Etruria.  —  The  Latin  towns,  already 
alarmed  at  the  encroachments  of  Rome,  had  seized  the  oppor- 
tunity of  the  Gallic  invasion  to  throw  off  Roman  leadership. 
Various  wars  followec^;  several  cities  were  captured,  and  some  of 
them  incorporated  in  the  Roman  state ;  for  the  rest,  the  league  was 
restored,  but  in  a  new  form  with  Rome  for  acknowledged  mistress. 

In  like  manner  the  revolts  in  Etruria  were  easily  put  down, 
and  the  southern  districts  were  annexed  as  Roman  territory. 
On  both  sides  the  new  acquisitions  were  garrisoned  with 
Roman  colonies  (§  336).  Thus  the  sway  of  Rome  reached 
over  all  the  lowlands  from  the  Ciminian  forest  in  central 
Etruria  (the  natural  boundary  on  the  north)  to  the  Liris  River, 
which  separated  Latium  from  the  fields  of  Campania.  Rome 
was  recognized,  too,  as  the  natural  champion  of  the  other  low- 
land states  against  the  rude,  aggressive  highlanders ;  and  from 
this  fact  came  her  next  extension  of  power. 

332.  The  Occupation  of  Campania  (the  First  Samnite  War, 
343  B.C.). — A  portion  of  the  hill  Samnites,  some  time  before, 
had  reconquered  fertile  Campania  from  Etruscans  and  Greeks. 
They  had  themselves  taken  on  the  lowland  civilization,  how- 
ever, and  were  now  attacked  in  turn  by  the  other  Samnites  of 
the  mountains.  In  these  straits  they  appealed  to  Rome  for 
aid,  and  it  was  thus  as  the  champion  of  civilization  that  Rome 
began  her  real  career  of  conquest.  The  mountain  tribes  were 
repulsed,  and  in  return  the  Campanian  cities  of  the  plain 
recognized  Roman  suzerainty. 

333.  The  Latins  finally  Subdued.  —  But  now  that  the  Sam- 
nites were  no  longer  dangerous,  the  Latin  allies  of  Rome,  ill  con- 
tent with  the  recent  settlement,  broke  into  the  great  Latin  revolt 


§  335]  THE   REAL  ADVANCE  —  367-269  B.C.  295 

of  338  B.C.  The  rising  was  crushed,  and  the  ancient  Latin 
League  was  dissolved.-  Its  public  land  became  Roman ;  more 
of  its  cities  (§  331)  were  forced  to  enter  the  Roman  state,  their 
citizens  being  listed  in  the  Roman  "tribes,"  and  the  remain- 
ing cities,  no  longer  permitted  any  relations  with  each  other, 
were  bound  to  Rome  as  subject  allies  by  individual  treaties.^ 

334.  Struggle  for  Supremacy  with  the  Samnites.  —  The  leader- 
ship of  central  Italy  now  lay  between  this  consolidated  city- 
state  of  the  lowlands  and  the  ruder  but  vigorous  tribal  state  of 
the  Samnites,  who  were  widely  spread  over  the  southern  Apen- 
nines. The  two  peoples  were  of  like  discipline  and  character, 
and  not  unequally  matched ;  but  Rome's  chains  of  fortress 
colonies  were  to  prove  more  than  an  offset  for  the  Samnite 
mountain  fortresses.  The  struggle  began  in  326  b.c.  and  lasted, 
with  brief  truces,  to  290  b.c.  The  Samnites  won  one  great 
victory  at  the  Caudine  Forks,  capturing  a  whole  Roman  army; 
but  they  lost  the  fruits  because  the  Romans  basely  refused  to 
abide  by  the  treaty  through  which  their  army  had  been  re- 
leased. Then  the  Samnites  built  up  a  great  anti-Roman  alli- 
ance, which  soon  came  to  count  nearly  all  the  peoples  of  Italy, 
together  with  the  Cisalpine  Gauls.  But,  using  to  the  full  the 
advantage  of  her  central  position,  Rome  beat  her  foes  in  detail ;. 
and  at  the  close  of  the  long  conflict  she  had  become  mistress  of 
all  the  true  peninsula,  except  the  Greek  cities  of  the  south. 

335.  Magna  Graecia ;  Tarentum  and  the  War  with  Pyrrhus.  — 

Ten  years  later  began  the  last  war  for  territory  in  Italy.  The 
Greek  cities  at  this  moment  were  harassed  by  neighboring 
mountaineers,  and  they  called  in  Roman  aid,  as  Campania  had 
done  sixty  years  before.  Thus  Roman  suzerainty  became  es- 
tablished readily  throughout  the  south,  except  in  Tarentum. 
That  great  city  sought  help  from  Pyrrhus,  the  chivalrous  king 

1  The  original  Latin  League  seems  to  have  been  a  religious  amphictyony, 
like  those  so  common  in  Greece,  before  it  became  a  political  bond ;  and  so 
now,  after  the  dissolution  of  the  political  league,  the  ancient  religious  festi- 
vals were  still  celebrated  by  all  Latins  on  the  ruins  of  Alba  Longa. 


296 


THE  UNIFICATION  OF  ITALY. 


[§  335 


of  Epirus  and  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of  the  Greek  mili- 
tary adventurers  who  arose  after  the  death  of  Alexander. 
Pjrrhiis  had  already  reached  Italy  with  a  great  armament. 
He  had  hoped  to  unite  the  cities  of  Magna  Graecia  and  then 
to  subdue  Carthage,  the  ancient  enemy  of  Hellenes  in  the  west ; 
that  is,  he  planned  to  play  in  western  Hellas  and  Africa  the 
part  already  played  by  Alexander  in  eastern  Hellas  and  Asia. 
He  knew  little  of  Rome ;  but  at  the  call  of  Tarentum  he  found 
himself  engaged  as  an  Hellenic  champion  with  this  new  power. 
He  won  some  victories,  chiefly  through  his  elephants  —  a  new 
heavy  artillery  to  the  Komans.  Then  most  of  southern  Italy 
joined  him,  and  he  offered  a  favorable  peace.  Under  the  lead- 
ership of  the  aged  and  blind  Appius  Claudius,  defeated  Rome 
answered  haughtily  that  she  would  treat  with  no  invader  while 
he  stood  on  Italian  soil.     Pyrrhus  chafed  at  the  delay  to  his 

wider  hopes,  and 
finally  hurried  off 
to  Sicily,  leaving 
his  victory  incom- 
plete. The  steady 
Roman  advance 
called  him  back, 
and  a  great  Roman 
victory  a.t  Bene- 
ventum  (275  b.c.) 
ruined  his  dream 
of  empire  and  made  Rome  mistress  of  the  Italy  whose  sover- 
eignty she  had  just  claimed  so  resolutely.  By  269  b.c.  the 
last  resistance  from  the  Greek  cities  had  ceased;  and  then,  in 
266,  Rome  rounded  off  her  work  by  the  thorough  conquest  of 
that  part  of  Cisalpine  Gaul  that  lay  south  of  the  Apennines. 


Coin  of  Pyrrhus,  struck  in  Sicily. 


For  Further  Reading.  —  The  best  compact  treatment  of  the  conquest 
of  Italy  is  by  Pelham,  68-97.  Detailed  accounts  are  given  in  Mommsen, 
and  especially  in  Ihne.  Students  should  read  an  excellent  summary  of 
Rome's  method  in  Smith's  Borne  and  Carthage,  27. 


CHAPTER  V. 

UNITED   ITALY   UNDER  ROMAN  RULB.1 

L    CLASSES  OF  POLITICAL  COMMUNITIES. 

A.    The  Roman  State. 

336.  Extent  and  Classes.  —  The  first  broad  political  distinc- 
tion in  Italy  was  that  between  the  Roman  state  proper  and  its 
subjects.  The  territory  of  Rome  comprised  one  third  the  soil 
of  Italy,  and  her  citizens  counted  two  hundred  and  ninety 
thousand  of  the  one  million  adult  free  males.  This  meant  a 
total  Roman  population  of  nearly  one  and  a  half  million,  be- 
side slaves. 

Of  course  these  were  not  all  residents  of  the  central  city. 
Rome  had  various  "  suburbs,"  —  for  the  most  part  in  Latium 
or  in  the  bordering  portions  of  Etruria  and  Campania.  Some 
of  these  were  Roman  colonies  which  had  been  planted  in  rings 
about  the  central  city  as  military  posts;  others  were  certain 
conquered  communities  which,  without  being  removed  to  Rome, 
had  been  incorporated  bodily  into  the  state  in  full  equality. 
This  last  had  been  the  case  finally  with  most  of  the  Latin 
towns,  the  Sabine  tribes,  and  some  other  cities  in  the  neighbor- 
hood. A  town  so  annexed  was  called  a  munidpium.  It  became 
part  of  Rome  for  imperial  matters,  and  kept  its  self-govern- 
ment for  local  concerns.  The  municipia  represent  a  political 
advance,  —  a  new  contribution  to  empire-making.  Athens  had 
had  cleruchies  corresponding  to  the  Roman  colonies  (§§  133, 
190),  but  the  municipia  mark  a  still  more  important  step  for- 

1  This  chapter  breaks  the  unity  of  the  story  of  Roman  expansion ;  but  it  is 
needful  at  this  point  to  understand  the  internal  character  of  the  new  Italian 
state,  in  order  to  understand  the  further  expansion  and  its  reaction. 

297 


298  UNITED  ITALY   UNDER   ROMAN   RULE.  [§337 

ward.  At  a  later  date  Rome  was  to  extend  the  principle  widely, 
and  it  has  ever  since  remained  a  vital  element  in  European 
civilization. 

Besides  the  colonies  and  municipia,  there  were  two  other  classes  of 
citizens :  many  small  hamlets  of  Romans  were  scattered  over  the  remoter 
parts  of  Italy  on  the  burgess-land ;  and  there  were  a  few  inferior  muni- 
cipia^ with  the  private,  but  not  the  public,  rights  of  Romans  (§  338).  This 
last  class  was  said  to  possess  a  "passive"  citizenship.  In  the  next  hun- 
dred years  these  communities  all  rose  into  the  class  of  full  citizens,  or,  by 
way  of  punishment  for  revolt,  were  degraded  into  the  class  of  subject- 
praefectures  (§  340). 

337.  Organization  in  the  Old  "  Tribes."  —  To  suit  this  expan- 
sion of  the  state,  the  twenty-one  Eoman  "tribes"  were  in- 
creased gradually  to  thirty-five,  —  four  in  the  city,  the  rest 
in  adjoining  districts.  At  first  these  were  strictly  territorial 
divisions,  and  a  man  changed  his  "tribe"  if  he  changed  his 
residence.  At  the  point  we  have  reached,  however,  this  was 
no  longer  true.  The  tribes  had  become  conventional  units. 
A  man  once  enrolled  remained  a  member,  no  matter  where  he 
lived,  and  his  son  after  him ;  and  a  tribe  had  come  to  contain 
great  numbers  of  citizens  who  never  had  lived  within  its 
territorial  limits.  The  number  thirty-five  was  left  unchanged ; 
but  as  the  state  expanded,  new  citizens  were  assigned  once  for 
all  to  a  particular  tribe  (sometimes  whole  cities,  far  apart,  to 
one  tribe). 

Each  tribe  kept  its  equal  vote  in  the  Assembly.  The  attend- 
ance of  the  majority  of  the  members  of  a  country  tribe  had 
already  become  physically  impossible.  Plainly,  in  the  absence 
of  representative  institutions,  the  plan  of  citizenship  did  not 
admit  of  indefinite  extension,  if  the  citizens  were  to  take  a 
real  part  in  the  government.^ 

338.  Rights  and  Obligations  of  Citizenship.  —  The  important 
rights  of  each  full  citizen  were :  — 

1  On  the  vexed  questions  as  to  the  tribes,  advanced  students  may  consult 
Mommsen,  I.  395-400;  Ihne,  I.  448,  449;  or  Early  Rome,  145-148  and  177-178. 


{339]  POLITICAL   CLASSES  IN  SUBJECT-ITALY.  299 

a.  Private:  the  right  to  acquire  property  under  the  pro- 
tection of  the  Eoman  law  in  any  of  Eome's  possessions  {corri' 
mercium) ;  and  the  right  of  intermarriage  in  any  Roman  or 
subject  community  (connuhium). 

b.  Public:  the  right  to  vote  in  the  tribes  on  all  matters 
of  Roman  and  imperial  policy;  eligibility  to  any  office;  and 
appeal  to  the  Assembly  if  condemned  to  death  or  bodily  pun- 
ishment. 

By  way  of  burdens,  the  citizens  furnished  half  the  army  of 
Italy  (far  more  than  their  numerical  share),  and  paid  all  the 
direct  taxes. 

B.     Political  Classes  in  Subject-Italy. 

Rome  was  not  yet  ready  to  give  up  the  idea  of  a  city  state ;  and  so, 
beyond  a  certain  limit,  all  new  acquisitions  of  territory  were  necessarily 
reduced  to  some  form  of  subjection.  Outside  the  Roman  state  was  sub- 
ject-Italy, in  three  main  classes. 

339.  The  Latin  Colonies.  —  Highest  in  privilege  among  the 
subject  communities  stood  the  Latins.  This  name  did  not 
apply  now  to  the  old  Latin  towns  (nearly  all  of  which  had 
become  municipia),  but  to  a  new  kind  of  colonies  sent  out  by 
Rome  after  338  b.c,  as  she  extended  her  conquests  far  beyond 
Latium.  Because  of  the  distance,  they  were  granted  not  citi- 
zenship, as  were  the  older  Romayi  colonies,  but  only  the  Latin 
right,  based  on  the  rights  enjoyed  by  the  towns  of  the  Latin 
confederacy  under  the  ancient  alliance  with  Rome :  that  is, 
their  citizens  had  the  private  rights  of  Romans  ;  and  they  might 
acquire  full  public  rights  also,  and  become  Roman  citizens  again 
in  all  respects,  by  removing  to  Rome  and  enrolling  in  one  of 
the  tribes.  At  first  this  removal  was  permitted  to  any  mem- 
ber of  such  a  town  who  left  a  son  in  his  own  city  to  represent 
him ;  but  in  the  later  colonies  the  privilege  was  restricted  to 
those  who  had  held  some  magistracy  in  the  colony. 

The  poorer  landless  citizens  of  Rome  had  little  political  power  at  this 
time.  They  were  enrolled  all  in  one  century,  and  in  no  tribe  until 
312  B.C.,  and  then  only  in  four  of  the  thirty-five  (§§  295,  322,  note,  and 


300 


UNITED   ITALY   UNDER  ROMAN   RULE. 


345).  Thus  they  could  well  afford  the  slight  sacrifice  of  citizenship  that 
came  from  joining  a  Latin  colony,  in  return  for  the  material  gain  they 
secured  as  the  aristocracy  of  a  new  settlement. 


There  were  thirty-five  of  these  colonies  before  the  Cartha- 
ginian invasion  of  Italy,  numbering  originally  from  three  hun- 
dred to  six  thousand  male  colonists  each.  They  are  notable  in 
three  respects :  — 

a.  They  were  a  chief  instrument  in  Romanizing  Italy  in 
language  and  institutions.     Surviving  inscriptions  show  that 


§  342]  ROME  AND   HER   SUBJECTS.  301 

they  copied  the  Koman  city  constitution,  even  to  such  names  as 
consuls  and  tribunes. 

&.  From  a  military  point  of  view  they  were  garrisons,  pro- 
tecting the  distant  parts  of  the  peninsula  against  revolt  or 
invasion.  An  enemy  could  rarely  assail  their  walls  success- 
fully ;  and  he  was  rash  indeed  to  pass  on,  leaving  them  to  fall 
upon  his  rear. 

c.  Politically,  they  added  a  new  element  of  elasticity  to  the 
rigid  system  of  citizenship  common  in  ancient  states,  making  a 
link  as  they  did  between  full  citizens  and  permanent  subjects. 

340.  The  Class  of  Praefectures  was  small  and  the  least  envi- 
able. It  consisted  of  a  few  conquered  towns  too  distant  to  per- 
mit incorporation  in  the  city  and  too  deep  offenders  to  warrant 
them  in  asking  either  the  Latin  right  or  "  alliance."  They 
bore  all  the  burdens  of  Roman  citizenship,  and  some  of  them 
had  part  of  the  private  rights,  and  so  are  easily  confused  with 
the  "  passive  citizens  "  ;  but  they  alone  of  all  cities  in  Italy 
had  their  government  administered  for  them  by  prefects  sent 
out  from  Rome  (§  336). 

341.  The  Italian  "Allies."  —  Most  numerous  of  all  the 
classes,  and  next  to  the  Latins  in  privilege,  stood  the  mass  of 
subject  Greeks,  Italians,  and  Etruscans,  under  the  general 
name  of  "Italian  allies."  These  cities,  it  is  true,  differed 
greatly  in  condition,  according  to  the  terms  of  their  respective 
treaties  with  Rome.  None  of  them,  however,  had  either  the 
private  or  public  rights  of  Romans,  and  they  were  isolated 
jealously  one  from  another;  but  in  general  they  bore  few  bur- 
dens and  enjoyed  local  freedom  and  Roman  protection. 

C.   Rome  and  her  Subjects. 
{A  Confederacy  under  a  Queen-city.) 

342.  Advantages  and  Restrictions  of  the  Subjects- — No  one 

of  the  subject  cities  had  any  one  of  the  three  great  sovereign 
rights  of  making  war,  concluding  treaties,  or  coining  money. 
They  did  retain  (with  the  exception  of  one  small  class)  very 


302  UNITED  ITALY  UNDER  ROMAN  RULE.  [§343 

nearly  complete  self-government  in  other  matters :  each  kept  its 
own  assembly,  senate,  and  magistrates  (with  varying  names) ; 
and,  in  general,  each  retained  its  own  law  and  custom,  and  ad- 
ministered its  own  justice.  They  paid  no  tribute,  except  to 
provide  and  maintain  their  small  share  of  troops  for  war. 
Thus,  where  Eome  could  not  confer  citizenship,  she  did,  with 
rare  insight  and  magnanimity,  lessen  burdens  and  leave  local 
freedom.  At  the  same  time  she  bestowed  order,  tranquillity, 
and  prosperity.  Roman  supremacy  put  a  stop  to  intolerable 
endless  and  wasting  feuds.  The  calamities  of  great  wars, 
such  as  were  to  follow  in  the  struggle  for  world-empire,  strike 
our  imagination ;  but  after  all  they  cause  infinitely  less  suffer- 
ing than  the  everlasting  petty  wars  of  neighbors,  with  inces- 
sant pillage  and  slaughter  diffused  everywhere.  Moreover,  so 
far  as  Italy  was  concerned,  the  theater  of  conflict  thenceforth 
was  to  be  mostly  beyond  her  borders. 

343.  Power  and  Policy  of  Rome. — The  citizens  of  the  thirty- 
five  Roman  tribes  were  the  sovereigns  of  Italy.  None  others 
possessed  any  of  the  imperial  power.  They,  or  their  officers, 
decided  for  all  Italy  upon  war  and  peace,  made  treaties,  issued 
the  only  coinage  permitted,  and  fixed  the  contingents  which 
the  subject  cities  must  furnish  for  war. 

It  should  be  noted  that  there  are  two  clearly  marked  phases 
to  the  Roman  genius  for  rule,  —  one  admirable,  and  the  ether 
at  least  effective. 

a.  Incorporation  and  Tolerance.  —  Rome  grew  strong  first 
by  a  wise  and  generous  incorporation  of  her  conquests.  With 
this  strength,  and  with  her  discipline  and  possessions,  she 
won  still  wider  physical  victories.  And  over  these  later  sub- 
jects she  won  also  spiritual  dominion  by  her  intelligence,  jus- 
tice, and  firmness,  and  especially  by  a  marvelous  toleration  for 
local  customs  and  rights. 

6.  Jealousy  and  Isolation.  —  At  the  same  time,  she  did 
strictly  isolate  the  subject  communities  from  each  other.  She 
dissolved  all  tribal  confederacies ;   she  took  skillful  advantage 


§343] 


ROME   AND   HER   SUBJECTS. 


303 


of  the  grades  of  inferiority  that  she  had  created  among  her 
dependents  to  foment  jealousies  and  to  play  off  one  class  of 
communities  against  another;  and  likewise,  within  each  city, 
she  set  class  against  class  —  on  the  whole  favoring  an  aristo- 
cratic organization.  In  politics  as  in  war,  the  policy  of  her 
statesmen  was,  '^Divide  and  conquer. ^^ 

Thus  the  rule  of  Rome  in  Italy,  was  not  an  absolute  dominion, 
such  as  it  was  to  be  later  over  more  distant  conquests.     The 


View  op  the  Appian  Way  To-day,  with  Ruins  of  the  Aqueduct 
OF  Claudius  in  the  Distance. 

whole  Italian  stock  had  become  consolidated  under  a  leading 
city.  In  form,  and  to  a  great  degree  in  fact,  Italy  was  a  con- 
federacy ;  but  it  was  a  confederacy  with  all  the  connecting  lines 
radiating  from  Rome.  The  allies  had  no  connection  with  each 
other  except  through  the  head  city.  Even  the  physical  ties  — 
the  famous  roads  that  marked  her  dominion  and  strengthened 
it  — "allied  to  Rome." 

Rome  began  her  system  of  magnificent  roads  in  312  b.c.  by  the  Via 
Appia  to  the  new  possessions  in  Campania.    This  was  the  work  of  the 


304  UNITED   ITALY   UNDER  ROMAN   RULE.  [§344 

censor  Appius  Claudius,  Afterward  all  Italy,  and  then  the  growing 
empire  outside  Italy,  was  traversed  by  a  network  of  such  roads.  Nothing 
was  permitted  to  obstruct  or  divert  their  course.  Mountains  were  tun- 
neled, rivers  bridged,  marshes  spanned  by  miles  of  viaducts  of  masonry. 
They  were  smoothly  paved  with  huge  slabs,  over  some  two  feet  of  gravel, 
to  the  width  of  eighteen  feet,  making  the  best  means  of  communication 
the  world  wras  to  see  until  the  time  of  railroads.  They  were  so  carefully 
constructed,  too,  that  their  remains,  in  good  condition  to-day,  still  "  mark 
the  lands  where  Rome  has  ruled."  Primarily  they  were  designed  for  mili- 
tary purposes  ;  but  of  course  they  facilitated  all  intercourse  and  helped  to 
bind  Italy  together  socially.     (Cf.  §  76  for  the  Persian  Roads.) 

Fob  Fdkther  Reading.  —  Ihne,  I.  537-552  ;  Mommsen,  II.  46-62 ; 
Pelham,  97-107. 

II.    THE   PERFECTED  REPUBLICAN  CONSTITUTION. 
A.   Growth  of  a  New  Aristocracy.^ 

344.  The  Nobles.  —  No  sooner  had  the  old  distinction  between 
plebeian  and  patrician  faded  away,  than  there  began  to  grow 
up  a  new  aristocracy  of  mixed  plebeian  and  patrician  families, 
known  as  the  nobles,  or  the  senatorial  class.  They  were  made 
up  of  the  descendants  of  office  holders.  It  came  to  pass  that 
a  man  was  recognized  as  "  noble  "  if  any  ancestor  had  been  a 
curule  officer,  —  censor,  consul,  praetor,  dictator,  aedile  (§  346). 
The  distinction  was  at  first  social  merely,  and  it  always  remained 
without  recognition  in  law;  but  before  300  b.c.  the  nobles 
began  to  be  jealous  of  the  admission  of  "new  men"  to  their 
ranks,  and  by  their  collective  influence  they  came  to  control 
nearly  all  elections  in  favor  of  members  of  their  own  order,  so 
making  a  close  hereditary  oligarchy  of  a  few  hundred  families. 

J5.  Political  Machinery  and  its  Working. 

345.  The  Assemblies :  Apparent  Growth  toward  Democracy.  — 
The  assemblies  by  curias,  by  centuries,  and  by  tribes  continued 
to  exist  side  by  side;  but  the  center  of  gravity  had  shifted 

1  Pelham,  170-172,  and  Mommsen,  HI.  3-18. 


§  346]     THE  PERFECTED  REPUBLICAN  CONSTITUTION.       305 

again,  —  as  once  before  from  the  curias  to  the  centuries,  so  now 
from  the  centuries  to  the  tribes.  The  political  function  of  the 
curiate  assembly  had  become  purely  formal  in  very  early  times 
(§  296).  The  centuriate  assembly  continued  to  elect  consuls, 
censors,  and  praetors;  but  its  law-making  power,  as  well  as 
the  choice  of  all  other  officers,  had  passed  to  the  new  comitia 
tributa,  which  was  now  in  law  the  moving  force  in  the  state. 
Moreover,  during  the  century  between  the  Licinian  Rogations 
and  the  war  with  Pyrrhus,  three  or  four  legal  reforms  were 
adopted,  designed  to  make  the  political  assemblies  still  more 
powerful  and  more  democratic. 

a.  In  312  b.c.  the  reforming  patrician  censor,  Appius  Clau- 
dius, enrolled  the  landless  proletariat  in  the  tribes.  Up  to 
this  time,  only  landholders  had  a  voice  there  (§  322).  Appius 
carried  this  sweeping  extension  of  the  franchise  unconstitution- 
ally, in  defiance  of  the  veto  of  his  colleague ;  the  aristocratic 
party  did  not  venture  to  undo  the  act,  but  they  did  modify  it. 
A  few  years  later  another  censor  placed  all  the  landless  class 
in  the  four  city  tribes  alone,  so  that  the  city  proletariat  might 
not  outvote  the  rural  landowners.  This  still  left  a  marked 
democratic  gain. 

b.  About  the  same  time  a  complicated  and  obscure  change 
took  place  in  the  centuriate  assembly,  by  which  each  of  the 
five  classes  secured  an  equal  voice,  and  wealth  was  deprived  of 
most  of  its  older  supremacy. 

c.  In  287  B.C.,  after  some  dissension  and  a  threatened  seces- 
sion, the  Hortensian  Law  took  from  the  senate  its  veto  upon  the 
plebiscita  of  the  tribes.  Somewhat  earlier  it  had  lost  all  veto 
over  the  elections  in  the  centuries. 

These  changes  made  Rome  a  democracy  in  law;  but  in 
practice  they  were  more  than  counterbalanced  by  aristocratic 
control  of  the  two  other  political  elements  (§§  346,  347). 

346.  Administrative  Officers.'  —  The  positions  of  greatest 
dignity  in  Rome,  in  order,  were  the  offices  of  aediles  (four,  with 

1  Mommsen,  I.  400-407 ;  Pelham,  103-107. 


306  UNITED   ITALY  UNDER   ROMAN  RULE.  [§  347 

oversight  over  police  and  public  works),  praetors  (two,  with 
supreme  judicial  power),  consuls  (two,  commanders  in  war 
and  leaders  in  foreign  policy),  and  censors.  These,  with  the 
occasional  dictatorship,  were  called  curule  offices,  because  the 
holders,  dividing  among  them  the  old  royal  power,  kept 
the  right  to  use  the  curule  chair  —  the  ancient  royal  ivory  chair 
of  state.  There  were  also  the  inferior  aediles,  the  eight  quaes- 
tors (in  charge  of  the  treasury  and  with  some  judicial  power), 
and  the  ten  tribunes.  This  last  office,  though  less  in  dignity 
than  the  curule  offices,  was  perhaps  most  impiortant  of  all. 
The  tribune's  old  duties  were  gone,  but  he  had  become  a 
political  leader  and  the  master  of  the  comitia  tributa  —  as 
the  consul  was  of  the  less  important  comitia  centuriata. 

Except  for  the  censor,  all  these  officers  held  authority  for 
only  one  year;  but  they  exercised  tremendous  power.  The 
ancient  imperium  which  the  king  had  transmitted  to  the  con- 
suls had  now  been  further  subdivided,  but  its  nature  remained 
essentially  unchanged.  The  magistrate  still  called  and  ad- 
journed assemblies  as  he  liked ;  and  he  phrased  all  proposals  to 
be  laid  before  them,  controlling  debate  and  amendment  at  will. 

347.  The  Senate^  the  Guiding  Force  in  the  Roman  Govern- 
ment.—  The  democracy  had  attempted  to  regulate  the  senate 
and  limit  its  powers.  Indirectly  that  body  had  been  made 
elective :  the  censors  were  required  to  fill  vacancies  first  from 
those  who  had  held  curule  offices,  and  ordinarily  this  would 
leave  them  little  discretion.  Moreover,  the  Hortensian  Law 
had  made  the  senatorial  veto  upon  the  Assemblies  a  sham. 
So  far  as  written  law  was  concerned,  the  senate  was  only  an 
advisory  body,  shorn  of  the  few  other  powers  it  had  formerly 
possessed. 

None  the  less,  in  the  unwritten  but  real  constitution,  the 
senate  was  the  organ  of  the  nobility  and  the  ruling  body  in 
the  state.  It  contained  the  wisdom  and  experience  of  Rome. 
The  pressure  of  constant  and  dangerous  wars,  and  the  growing 

1  Read  Mommsen,  I.  406-412,  or  Pelham,  159-167. 


§348]     THE  PERFECTED   REPUBLICAN  CONSTITUTION.      307 

complexity  of  foreign  relations  even  in  peace,  made  it  inevi- 
table that  this  far-seeing,  compact,  experienced  body  should 
assume  authority  which  in  theory  belonged  to  the  clumsy, 
inexperienced  Assembly.  "  Rome,"  says  Ihne,  "  became  a 
complete  aristocracy  with  democratic  forms ;  "  or,  as  Mommsen 
puts  it,  "While  the  burgesses  acquired  the  semblance,  the 
senate  acquired  the  substance,  of  power."  As  the  magistrate 
controlled  the  Assemblies,  so  the  senate  controlled  the  magis- 
trate. No  consul  would  think  of  bringing  a  law  before  the 
people  without  the  approval  of  the  senate ;  so  that  indirectly 
that  body,  rather  than  the  Assembly,  had  become  the  real 
legislature.  No  officer  would  draw  money  from  the  treasury 
without  its  consent.  It  declared  war,  and  usually  directed  its 
progress.  It  received  ambassadors  and  made  alliances.  And 
certainly  for  over  a  hundred  years  this  "  assembly  of  kings  " 
justified  its  usurpation  by  its  sagacity  and  energy,  earning 
Mommsen's  epithet,  —  "the  foremost  political  corporation  of 
all  time." 

C     Democratic  Theory  and  Aristocratic  Practice. 

348.  The  Rule  of  the  Nobles.  —  The  constitution  had  taken 
on  its  final  form  before  the  Pyrrhic  War,  though  its  spirit  was 
yet  to  undergo  change.  The  trend  of  that  change  also  was 
already  apparent.  In  theory  the  democracy  was  supreme 
through  its  popular  assemblies ;  in  practice  the  aristocrats  con- 
trolled the  government  absolutely  through  their  monopoly 
of  the  curule  offices  and  consequently  of  the  all-directing 
senate. 

This  condition  was  to  last  nearly  three  hundred  years. 
During  the  first  half  of  this  time  (until  about  200  b.c.)  the 
rule  of  the  nobles,  though  marked  sometimes  by  a  narrow  class 
spirit,  was  patriotic,  vigorous,  and  beneficent.  In  the  second 
half  it  became  both  weak  and  selfish ;  and  power  slipped  from 
the  incapable  aristocracy  into  the  hands  of  a  series  of  military 
chiefs,  —  the  forerunners  of  the  Empire. 


308  UNITED   ITALY   UNDER   ROMAN   RULE.  [§349 

For  Further  Reading.  —  Polybius  (VI. )  describes  the  Roman  con- 
stitution as  he  saw  it  about  150  b.c.  Extracts  from  Polybius  in  Fling's 
Studies^  6.    Modern  authorities  have  been  referred  to  in  the  footnotes. 


ni.     SOCIETY  IN  ROME  AND   ITALY. 

349.  Economic.  —  From  367  to  about  200  b.c.  is  the  period 
of  greatest  Roman  vigor.  The  old  distinction  between  patri- 
cian and  plebeian  had  died  out;  and,  though  a  social  and  politi- 
cal aristocracy  was  growing  up,  the  coming  economic  struggle 
between  rich  and  poor  had  not  fairly  begun.  The  rapid  gains 
of  territory  made  it  possible  to  relieve  the  city  poor  by  grants 
of  land  and  by  colonization;  and  the  Roman  people,  in  the 
main,  were  still  simple  and  frugal  yeomen,  whose  industry 
made  a  garden  of  many  parts  of  Italy  that  are  to-day  aban- 
doned to  malarial  swamps.  There  were  few  citizens  of  great 
wealth  or  in  extreme  poverty.  Copper  was  the  only  coinage 
until  the  Pyrrhic  War ;  and  even  later  a  senator  was  struck 
from  the  list  because  he  owned  ten  pounds  of  silver  plate.  The 
legend  of  the  patrician  Cincinnatus,  of  the  fifth  century, — 
called  as  Dictator  from  the  plow  on  his  four-acre  farm  to  save 
Rome  from  the  Sabines,  and  returning  to  the  plow  again,  after 
victory,  in  sixteen  days,  —  is  more  than  matched  by  the  re- 
corded history  of  Manius  Curio j  the  conqueror  of  the  Samnites 
and  of  Pyrrhus.  This  greatest  Roman  of  that  great  day  was  a 
Sabine  peasant  and  a  proud  aristocrat.  Plutarch  tells  us  that, 
though  he  had  "triumphed"  thrice,  he  continued  to  live  in  a 
cottage  on  a  little  four-acre  plot  which  he  tilled  with  his  own 
hands.  Here  the  Samnite  ambassadors  found  him  dressing 
turnips  in  the  chimney  corner  when  they  came  to  offer  him  a 
large  present  of  gold.  Curio  refused  the  gift:  "A  man,"  said 
he,^ "  who  can  be  content  with  this  supper  hath  no  need  of  gold ; 
and  I  count  it  glory,  not  to  possess  wealth,  but  to  rule  those 
who  do." 

350.  Character  and  Ideals.  —  Still,  it  must  be  remembered  that 
it  is  cheap  moralizing  to  point  out  the  barbaric  virtues  of  a 


§351]  SOCIETY  IN  ROME   AND  ITALY.  309 

rude  society  in  comparison  with  tlie  luxury  of  refined  times, 
omitting  more  important  contrasts.  Early  Rome  has  come  in 
for  much  such  doubtful  praise,  but  the  real  picture  is  by  no 
means  without  shadows.  At  his  best,-  the  Roman  was  abste- 
mious, haughty,  obedient  to  law,  self -controlled,  cruel  to  his  own 
flesh  as  to  strangers.  His  ideal  was  a  man  of  iron  will  and 
stern  discipline,  devoted  to  the  state,  contemptuous  of  luxury, 
of  suffering,  and  even  of  human  sympathy  or  family  feeling  if 
it  conflicted  with  his  duty  to  Rome.  His  model  was  still  the 
first  consul  Brutus,  who  could  send  his  guilty  sons  to  the  block 
unmoved;  and  the  great  Latin  war  (338  B.C.)  furnished  an 
historical  Manlius,  who,  as  Livy  tells  us,  gloomily  executed 
his  gallant  son  for  a  glorious  act  of  insubordination  to  him- 
self as  consul.  With  such  men  for  her  heroes,  it  is  not  so 
strange  that  Rome  made  some  peculiar  boasts.  For  instance, 
the  noble  Samnite  Pontius,  the  victor  of  Caudine  Eorks,  had 
magnanimously  spared  the  Roman  army  there ;  but  when  he 
became  prisoner  in  turn,  Rome  saw  only  cause  for  pride  in 
basely  dragging  him  through  the  city  in  a  triumph,  and  then 
starving  him  to  death  in  a  dungeon.  An  impartial  estimate 
must  show  the  Roman  coarse,  cruel,  and  rapacious,  as  well  as 
lofty-minded,  brave,  and  obedient. 

351.  Rome  and  Outside  Italy.  —  Economically  and  in  morals 
Rome  was  a  fair  type  of  the  Italians  proper;  the  Etruscans 
and  Greeks  were  softer  and  more  luxurious,  with  more  abject 
poverty  among  the  masses. 

After  the  war  with  Pyrrhus,  the  connection  with  Magna 
Graecia  introduced  Greek  culture  into  Roman  society,  while 
the  effect  of  conquest  began  to  show  in  growing  wealth  and 
luxury.  It  cannot  be  said  that  the  Romans  as  a  whole  ap- 
pear to  advantage  at  first  under  the  change.  Too  often  it 
seemed  only  to  veneer  their  native  coarseness  and  brutality. 
At  the  same  time,  with  the  better  minds  (as  with  the  Scipios), 
it  softened  and  refined  character  into  a  more  lovable  type  than 
Italy  had  so  far  seen; 


310  UNITED  ITALY   UNDER   ROMAN  RULE.  [§362 

IV.     THE  ARMY. 

352.  The  Flexible  Legion.  —  The  instrument  with  which  the 
Roman  state  conquered  the  world  can  best  be  surveyed  at  this 
point,  although  the  changes  to  be  noted  in  §  355  took  place 
somewhat  later. 

The  Eoman  army  under  the  kings  appears  to  have  been  simi- 
lar to  the  old  Dorian  organization.  In  Italy,  as  in  Greece,  the 
"knights"  of  earlier  times  had  gij^en  way  to  a  dense  hoplite 
array,  usually  eight  deep.  In  Greece  the  next  step  was  to 
deepen  and  close  the  ranks  still  further  into  the  massive  The- 
ban  and  Macedonian  phalanx.  In  Italy,  instead,  they  were 
broken  up  into  three  successive  lines,  each  line  being  divided 
into  small  companies,  with  intervals  between  them,  while  each 
soldier  was  allowed  about  twice  the  space  permitted  by  the 
phalanx  arrangement. 

The  arms  differed  correspondingly.  The  legion  used  the 
hurling  javelin  to  disorder  the  enemy's  ranks  before  immediate 
contact  (the  modern  musketry  fire),  and  the  sword  for  close 
combat  (the  modern  bayonet).  Flexibility,  individuality,  and 
constancy  took  the  place  of  the  single  collective  lance  thrust  of 
the  unwieldy  phalanx.  So  long  as  the  phalanx  remained  un- 
broken and  could  present  its  front,  it'  was  invulnerable  ;  but  if 
disordered  by  inequalities  of  ground,  or  taken  in  flank,  it  was 
doomed.  The  two  great  fighting  instruments  were  not  to  come 
into  final  conflict  until  after  200  b.c.  Meantime  they  remained 
supreme  in  the  East  and  the  West  respectively.  The  legion  at 
this  time  numbered  about  five  thousand  Roman  citizens,  with 
as  many  more  troops  from  the  "  allies." 

353.  The  Roman  Camp  was  a  peculiar  institution  in  itself, 
characteristic  of  a  people  whose  colonies  were  garrisons.  Where 
the  army  encamped  —  even  if  for  only  a  single  night  —  there 
grew  up  in  an  hour  a  fortified  city,  with  its  outer  walls  and  its 
regular  streets.^    This  system  allowed  the  Romans  often  "to 

1  Special  report :  the  importance  of  these  camps  as  the  sites  and  foundation 
plans  of  cities  over  Europe,  as  at  Chester  (Castra),  in  England. 


§355] 


THE  ARMY. 


311 


conquer  by  sitting  still,"  declining  or  giving  battle  at  their  own 
option;  while,  too,  when  they  did  fight,  they  did  so  "under 
the  walls  of  their  city,"  with  a  fortified  and  guarded  refuge  in 
their  rear. 

Porta  Deeumana 


z  z 

5  5 

a  a: 

O  O 

u  o 

o o 

CO  to 


<o 

«, 

UJ 

o 

0. 

CO 

±__± 

z 

<o         _ 


CO 

- 

; 

a 

u, 

h- 

a-       < 

O        H 

z 

_         CO 

g     < 
°-    I 


PRAEFECTI 

V 

SOCIORUM 

LEGATI 

5  lj 

2S 

'n     c     i     p     a     I 


QUAESTORIUMd[ 


]  c 


PRAE- 
TORJUM 


]§         FORUM 


E   S 

B   X  T 

PEDITE6 

EXTRA- 

ORDIN  ARM 


s  z 

5  5 

O  O 

o  o 

o o 

CO  CO 


CO  CO 

iij                    ill 
t t 

Z3 O 

a ^ 

III  a. 


LEGATI 

SOCIORUM 

5   !j 

D   I    N   A   R   I    I 


AU  XI  LI  A 


-L.I 


Porta  Praetoria 

The  Roman  Camp. 


354.  Discipline.  —  The  terrible  discipline  of  early  times 
remained.  Without  trial,  the  general  could  scourge  or  behead 
any  man  serving  in  his  camp.  Still  more  fearful  was  the 
practice  of  decimatirig  a  faulty  corps  (putting  to  death  every 
tenth  man). 

355.  Changes  with  Extension  of  Service:  a  Professional  Army 
and  Proconsuls.  —  Service  with  the  legions  was  still  the  highest 


312  UNITED  ITALY   UNDER   ROMAN  RULE.  [§355 

duty  of  the  citizen,  and  each  man  between  the  ages  of  seven- 
teen and  forty-six  was  liable  to  active  duty.  But  alongside  this 
citizen-army,  in  the  period  to  which  we  are  now  come,  especially 
in  the  Second  Punic  War,  there  was  to  grow  up  a  professional 
army.  New  citizen  legions  were  raised  each  year  for  the 
summer  campaigns  as  before,  though  more  and  more,  even 
there,  the  veteran  officers,  from  centurions  up,  remained  a 
professional  class;  but  the  legions  sent  to  Sicily,  Spain,  or 
Africa  were  kept  under  arms  sometimes  for  many  years. 
In  particular,  the  long  struggle  in  Spain  after  the  close  of 
the  Hannibalic  War  (§  377)  operated  in  this  way.  Some 
twenty  thousand  soldiers  were  required  constantly  for  that 
province  each  year  for  half  a  century.  In  consequence,  there 
arose  a  professional  standing  army.  This  led  to  increase  of 
pay,  to  the  recognition  of  plunder  as  a  legitimate  part  of  the 
soldier's  compensation,  and,  at  a  later  date,  to  the  practice  of 
settling  such  veterans,  upon  the  expiration  of  their  service,  in 
military  colonies  in  the  provinces  where  they  had  served — the 
lands  thus  given  them  being  regarded  as  a  kind  of  service  pen- 
sion. In  this  way,  communities  of  Roman  citizens  were  to  be 
spread  over  the  provinces  to  Italianize  the  world,  as  a  like 
system  of  colonization  had  already  Romanized  Italy. 

Even  more  important  in  political  respects  was  another  result. 
To  call  home  a  consul  from  an  unfinished  campaign  in  these 
long  and  distant  wars  had  become  intolerably  wasteful.  The 
remedy  was  found  in  prolonging  the  imperium  of  the  com- 
mander with  the  title  of  pro-consvl  or  pro-praetor — an  office 
destined  to  become  the  strongest  force  in  the  Republic  and  a 
chief  prop  of  the  coming  Empire. 


For  Further  Reading.  — Mommsen,  I.  394-412,  and  II.  47-95  (also, 
though  less  important,  ih.  96-128)  ;  Ihne,  I.  428-461  and  537-576 ;  Tighe, 
ch.  vii. ;  Pelham,  96-106  ;  Granrud. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  WINNING  OF  THE  WESTERN  MEDITERRANEAN, 
264-146  B.C. 

L     THE   RIVALS  — ITALY  AND   CARTHAGE. 

356.  Italy  now  One  of  Five  Great  Mediterranean  States.  —  By 
266  B.C.  Roman  conquest  had  united  all  Italy  (§  335).  One 
hundred  twenty  years  more  made  this  united  Italy  mistress  of 
the  Mediterranean  lands.  For  some  time  the  dominion  of  that 
world  had  been  held  by  the  three  great  Greek  kingdoms  in  the 
East  (§^7)  and  by  Carthage  in  the  West.  Now  between  them 
stood  forth  this  new  power,  destined  to  absorb  them  all.  The 
existence  of  Italy  as  a  real  force  in  the  world  had  been  re- 
vealed by  the  repulse  of  Pyrrhus.  Eastern  Greek  scholars  had 
begun  at  once  to  study  keenly  the  institutions  and  history  of 
the  new  state,  but  for  some  time  longer  its  important  political 
relations  were  with  the  West. 

357.  Carthage  the  only  Rival  in  the  West.^  —  Plainly  the  im- 
mediate rival  of  Rome  was  Carthage,  although  the  two  powers 
had  just  been  joined  in  a  close  alliance  against  Pyrrhus. 
That  gallant  adventurer  had  left  Italy  with  the  longing  ex- 
clamation on  his  lips,  "  How  fair  a  battle-field  we  are  leaving 
to  the  Romans  and  Carthaginians";  and  in  less  than  ten 
years,  the  hundred-year  conflict  began.  Carthage  was  an 
ancient  Phoenician  colony  on  the  finest  harbor  in  North  Africa. 
Her  government  was  an  oligarchic  republic.  She  had  long 
contended  with  the  Greeks  for  dominance  in  the  western 
Mediterranean,  and  she  was  now  at  the  height  of  her  power. 
Polybius  called  her  the  richest  city  in  the  world.     To  her 

1  An  excellent  treatment  is  given  in  Mommsen,  bk.  iii.  ch.  i.  A  more 
favorable  view  in  Ihne,  II.  a-21.    See  also  Polybius,  bk.  t  chs.  li.-lvi 

313 


314         WINNING  THE   WESTERN   MEDITERRANEAN.        [§  367 

old  naval  supremacy,  she  had  added  recently  a  vast  land 
dominion,  including  North  Africa  (with  some  three  hundred 
cities  and  indefinite  territory  roamed  over  by  the  nomads 
of  the  interior)  and  most  of  Spain,  Sardinia,  and  Sicily. 
The  western  Mediterranean  she  regarded  as  a  Punic  Lake : 
foreign  sailors  caught  trespassing  there  were  cast  into  the 
sea. 

Her  Roman  foes  have  represented  Carthage  as  wanting  in 


Carthaginian  Coin  Struck  in  Sicily. 
Head  of  Persephone. 

integrity,  and  with  biting  irony  they  invented  the  term, 
"  Punic  ^  faith,"  as  a  synonym  for  treachery.  The  slander  be- 
came embalmed  in  speech,  but  it  seems  baseless.  Carthage 
herself  is  "  a  dumb  actor  on  the  stage  of  history  " ;  she  once 
had  poetry,  oratory,  and  philosophy,  but  none  of  it  was  to 
escape  Eoman  hate,  to  tell  us  how  Carthaginians  had  thought 
and  felt.  Rome  wrote  the  history,  and  certainly  was  not  gen- 
erous to  her  rival ;  but  even  from  the  Roman  story,  the  charge 
of  faithlessness  and  greed  is  most  apparent  against  Rome  in  all 
the  dealings  of  the  two  rivals.  However,  the  civilization  of 
Carthage  was  apparently  of  an  Oriental  type ;  her  religion  was 
largely  the  cruel  and  licentious  worship  of  the  Phoenician  Baal 
and  Astarte ;  her  armies  were  a  motley  mass  of  mercenaries 

1  From  a  form  of  the  word  Phoenician. 


§358]  THE   RIVALS  — ITALY  AND   CARTHAGE.  315 

paid  by  the  profits  of  her  commerce;  and  though,  like  the 
mother  Phoenician  states  (§  08),  she  scattered  widely  the  seeds 
of  a  material  culture,  like  them  also,  as  contrasted  with  Greeks 
and  Romans,  she  showed  no  power  of  assimilating  inferior  or 
barbarous  nations.  The  conquests  of  Rome  were  to  be  Roman- 
ized, but  six  centuries  of  Punic  rule  had  left  the  Berber  tribes 
of  Africa  wholly  outside  Carthaginian  society;  nor  did  her 
briefer  rule  in  Spain  or  Sicily  give  promise  of  better  results. 


Coin  of  Hiero  II.  of  Syracuse. 

The  contrast  between  the  political  systems  of  the  two  rivals  is 
equally  striking.     Says  Mommsen  (II.  155)  :  — 

"Carthage  dispatched  her  overseers  everywhere,  and  loaded  even  the 
old  Phoenician  cities  with  a  heavy  tribute,  while  her  subject  tribes  were 
practically  treated  as  state  slaves.  In  this  way  there  was  not  in  the  com- 
pass of  the  Carthagino-African  state  a  single  community,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  Utica,  that  would  not  have  been  politically  and  materially 
benefited  by  the  fall  of  Carthage  ;  in  the  Romano-Italic  there  was  not 
one  that  had  not  much  more  to  lose  than  to  gain  in  rebelling  against  a 
government  which  was  careful  to  avoid  injuring  material  interests,  and 
which  never,  at  least  by  extreme  measures,  challenged  political  oppo- 
sition." 

358.  The  Issue  at  Stake.  —  Thus,  whatever  our  sympathy  for 
Carthage  and  her  hero  leaders,  we  must  see  that  the  victory  of 
Rome  was  a  necessary  condition  for  the  welfare  of  the  human 
race.  It  was  the  conflict  of  Greece  and  Persia  repeated  by 
more  stalwart  actors  on  a  western  stage  (§  176). 


316  WINNING  THE   WESTERN  MEDITERRANEAN.      [§359 


XL  THE  FIRST  PUNIC  WAR  (THE   WAR  FOR  SICILY). 

359.  Occasion.  —  The  Eoman  suzerainty  over  the  Greeks  of 
south  Italy  led  inevitably  to  relations  with  the  other  half  of 
Magna  Graecia  in  Sicily.  That  great  island  is  really  a  continu- 
ation of  the  Italian  peninsula,  and  it  reaches  to  within  ninety 
miles  of  the  African  coast.  A  sunken  ridge  on  the  bed  of 
the  sea  shows  that  it  once  helped  to  join  the  two  continents, 
between  which  it  still  forms  a  stepping-stone.  European  and 
African  had  struggled  for  this  middle  land  for  centuries ;  and 
for  centuries  yet  to  come  it  was  to  be  the  wrestling  ground  be- 
tween European  Eomans  and  Normans  and  African  Vandals  and 
Moors.  In  265  e.g.,  the  island  had  been  divided  for  two  hundred 
years  between  Syracuse  and  Carthage  (§§  155,  168,  174,  217). 
In  that  year  the  "  Mamertines,"  a  band  of  Campanian  merce- 
naries calling  themselves  Sons  of  Mars,  seized  Messana  from 
Hiero  II.,  tyrant  of  Syracuse.  To  protect  themselves,  one 
faction  of  the  robbers  then  called  in  Carthage,  and  another 
party  appealed  to  Kome  as  the  protector  of  the  Italian  Greeks. 
Both  Syracuse  and  Carthage  were  allies  of  Rome,  and  it  was 
not  easy  for  that  state  to  find  excuse  for  defending  the  robbers; 
but  after  long  deliberation  the  desire  to  check  Carthage  and  to 
extend  Roman  power  outweighed  all  caution,  as  well  as  all 
moral  considerations  and  the  traditions  of  ancient  policy. 
The  senate,  indeed,  could  come  to  no  decisive  resolve ;  but  the 
tribes,  to  whom  it  referred  the  question,  felt  a  masterful  con- 
sciousness of  their  power,  and,  at  their  vote,  in  264  B.C.,  Roman 
legions  for  the  first  time  crossed  the  seas.  Says  Mommsen, 
with  his  usual  glorification  of  an  imperial  policy :  — 

"It  was  one  of  those  moments  when  calculation  fails,  and  when  faith 
alone  in  men's  own  and  their  country's  destiny  gives  courage  to  grasp  the 
hand  that  beckons  out  of  the  darkness  of  the  future  and  to  follow  it  one 
knows  not  whither.'* 

360.  Strength  of  the  Parties.  —  Carthage  was  mistress  of 
a  huge  but  scattered  and  heterogeneous  empire.     Rome  was 


§361]  SICILY  — THE  FIRST  PUNIC   WAR.  817 

tlie  head  of  a  compact  nationality  (see  map).  The  strength  of 
Carthage  lay  in  her  wealth  and  navy  (the  latter  partly  oifset 
by  the  vicinity  of  Italy  to  Sicily).  Her  weak  points  were: 
the  jealousy  felt  by  the  ruling  families  at  home  toward  their 
own  successful  generals;  the  difficulty  of  dealing  with  her 
mercenaries ;  the  danger  of  revolt  among  her  Libyan  subjects ; 
and  the  fact  that  an  invading  army  after  one  victory  would 
find  no  resistance  outside  her  walls,  since  her  jealousy  had 
leveled  the  defenses  of  her  tributary  towns  in  Africa.  E-ome 
was  strong  in  an  enterprising  public  spirit,  in  the  discipline 
and  fighting  qualities  of  her  legions,  and  in  the  fidelity  and 
strength  of  her  allies.  Her  weakness  lay  in  the  want  of  a 
better  military  system  than  the  one  of  annually-changing  offi- 
cers and  short-term  soldiers,^  and  in  the  total  lack  of  prepara- 
tion for  conflict  with  a  naval  power. 

361.   General  Progress ;    Value   of   Naval   Supremacy.  —  The 

war  lasted  twenty-three  years  (just  the  length  of  the  Second 
Samnite  War),  and  is  ranked  by  Polybius  above  all  previous 
wars  for  severity.  Few  conflicts  illustrate  better  the  supreme 
value  of  naval  superiority.  At  first  the  Carthaginians  were  un- 
disputed masters  of  the  sea.  They  therefore  reenforced  their 
troops  in  Sicily  at  pleasure,  and  ravaged  the  coasts  of  Italy  to 
the  utter  ruin  of  seaboard  prosperity ;  indeed,  for  a  time  they 
made  good  their  warning  to  the  Roman  senate  before  the  war 
began,  —  that  against  their  will  no  Roman  could  dip  his  hands 
in  the  sea. 

But  the  Romans,  with  sagacity  and  boldness,  built  their  first 
important  war  fleet  and  soon  met  the  ancient  Queen  of  the 
Seas  on  her  own  element.  Winning  command  there  tempora- 
rily,^ they  invaded  Africa  itself,  shaking  the  Carthaginian  Em- 

1  The  changes  referred  to  in  §  355  had  not  yet  taken  place. 

2  Special  report :  the  new  naval  tactics  of  the  Romans  (Mommsen,  11. 173- 
176;  Ihne,  II.  50-55). 

Despite  real  genius  in  the  device  by  which  Rome  changed  a  naval  into  a 
land  battle  to  so  great  a  degree,  her  immediate  victory  at  sea  over  the  veteran 
navy  of  Carthage  is  explicable  chiefly  on  the  supposition  that  the  "Roman" 


818         WINNING  THE   WESTERN   MEDITERRANEAN.       [§362 

pire  at  once  to  its  foundations :  and  some  years  later  a  more 
complete  defeat  at  sea  made  it  impossible  for  Carthage  to  con- 
tinue the  conflict  in  Sicily,  and  brought  her  to  sue  for  peace. 
To  secure  it,  she  surrendered  Sicily  and  paid  a  heavy  war 
indemnity.  Syracuse  with  the  neighboring  territory  in  the 
southeast  of  the  island  was  left  under  the  rule  of  Hiero,  a 
faithful  Roman  ally  in  the  war,  and  the  rest  of  Sicily  became 
a  possession  of  Eome. 

362.  Special  Features  in  the  Struggle.  —  Two  matters  deserve 
special  mention,  because  they  illustrate  the  notable  public 
spirit  at  Rome  and  the  need  of  a  more  permanent  army. 

a.  The  Roman  invasion  of  Africa  in  256  B.C.  was  at  first 
brilliantly  successful;  but,  as  winter  approached,  the  short- 
term  levies  were  mostly  recalled,  according  to  custom,  and 
the  weak  remnant  under  the  consul  Regulus  ^  was  soon  com- 
pletely crushed.  The  lesson  of  the  need  of  a  more  perma- 
nent military  system  for  distant  warfare  was  not  forgotten 
(§  355). 

h.  Rome's  first  attempts  upon  the  sea  were  surprisingly  suc- 
cessful; but  soon  terrible  reverses  and  accidents  befell  her. 
In  quick  succession  four  great  fleets  were  lost,  with  as  many 
Roman  armies  on  board.  One  sixth  the  burgess-body  had 
perished  in  the  war ;  the  treasury  was  empty ;  and  the  state 
gave  up  the  desperate,  but  absolutely  essential,  effort  to  secure 
the  sea.  In  this  crisis  the  fleet  of  two  hundred  ships  (with 
sixty  thousand  men)  that  was  finally  to  win  the  decisive  vic- 
tory was  built  and  equipped  by  the  lavish  free-will  contribu- 
tions of  public-spirited  citizens. 


navy  was  furnished  by  the  "allies"  in  Magna  Graecia.  The  old  story  that 
Rome  built  her  fleet  in  two  months  on  the  model  of  a  stranded  Carthaginian 
vessel,  and  meantime  trained  her  sailors  to  row  sitting  on  the  sand,  must  be 
in  the  main  a  quaint  invention  (see  Ihne,  11.  52-55).  Mommsen  (II.  4S-46) 
outlines  the  history  of  the  Roman  navy  for  sixty  years  before  the  war,  and 
(II.  172-176)  gives  a  possible  meaning  to  the  old  account  by  Polybius. 

1  Special  report :  the  story  of  Regulus,  and  modern  criticism ;  Mommsen, 
U.  184,  note;  Ihne,  II.  78-81. 


§364]  FROM  FIRST  TO   SECOND   PUNIC   WAR.  319 


III.    FROM  THE  FIRST  TO  THE  SECOND  PUNIC  WAR. 

The  first  half  century  after  the  completion  of  Italian  unity  in  the  war 
with  Pyrrhus,  is  marked  by  two  great  processes  (§§  363,  364). 

363.  The  Extension  of  Italy  to  its  Natural  Borders.  —  The  old 

Apennine  Italy  (§  271)  had  been  united  under  Rome  at  the 
close  of  the  Pyrrhic  War.  Next,  that  narrow  Italy  wid- 
ened to  its  natural  limits  by  three  great  steps, — the  acquisi- 
tion of  Sicily,  of  Sardinia  and  Corsica,  and  of  the  Po  valley. 
The  First  Punic  War  had  secured  Sicily.  Three  years  later 
(238  B.C.),  while  Carthage  was  engaged  in  the  horrible  "  Inex- 
piable War  "  ^  with  her  revolted  mercenaries  and  subjects  in 
Africa,  her  mercenary  armies  in  Sardinia  and  Corsica  also 
mutinied  and  offered  those  islands  to  Rome.  The  temptation 
was  too  much  for  Roman  honor.  The  offer  was  shamelessly 
accepted;  and  when  Carthage  made  a  well-grounded  protest, 
she  was  met  by  a  stern  threat  of  war.  Then,  in  225  B.C.,  the 
last  step  was  taken.  The  Gauls,  that  abiding  terror  of  the 
north,  again  threatened  Italy,  and  actually  penetrated  to 
within  three  days'  march  of  Rome;  Italian  patriotism,  how- 
ever, rallied  round  the  capital  city  to  resist  the  barbarous 
invaders;  they  were  overwhelmed  and  crushed,  and,  by  the 
year  222  b.c,  Cisalpine  Gaul  also  had  become  a  Roman  posses- 
sion, garrisoned  by  colonies.  It  was  certainly  a  happy  chance 
that  gave  Rome  so  good  excuse  just  at  this  time  to  push  her 
northern  boundary  from  the  low,  easily  crossed  Apennines  to 
the  great  crescent  wall  of  the  Alps. 

364.  The  Organization  of  these  New  Conquests:  the  Provincial 
System.  —  Unfortunately,  Rome  could  devise  no  new  principle 
of  government  by  which  to  rule  these  new  realms,  which  were 
still  looked  upon  as  outside  Italy.  Distance,  and  the  character 
of  the  countries,  seemed  to  forbid  the  generous  treatment 
accorded    the   "allies"   in    Italy   proper,   and  they  became, 

1  Special  report. 


320         WINNING  THE   WESTERN  MEDITERRANEAN.       [§365 

strictly,  subject  possessions,  ruled  upon  the  model  of  tlie  Ital- 
ian praefectures  (§  340).  Sicily,  the  first  possession  out  of 
Italy,  was  managed  temporaril}^  by  a  Eoman  praetor;  but  in 
227  B.C.,  when  some  semblance  of  order  had  been  introduced 
into  Sardinia  and  Corsica,  the  senate  adopted  a  permanent 
plan  of  government  for  all  the  new  insular  possessions.  Two 
additional  praetors,  it  was  decided,  should  be  elected  each  year, 
—  one  to  rule  Sicily,  the  other  for  the  two  other  islands.  The 
two  governments  received  the  name  of  provinces.  Some  time 
afterward  Cisalpine  Gaul  was  organized  in  a  like  manner, 
though  it  was  not  given  the  title  of  a  province  until  much 
later.  Such  was  the  beginning  of  the  provincial  system  that 
was  to  spread  finally  far  beyond  these  "  suburbs  of  Italy."  ^ 

rV.    THE  SECOND  PUNIC   WAR    (SOMETIMES  STYLED   "THE 
WAR  FOR   SPAIN  "2). 

365.  General  Character- — ^^Rome  and  Carthage  were  still  too 
equally  matched  for  either  to  resign  the  sovereignty  of  the 
western  Mediterranean  without  another  struggle.  The  decis- 
ive contest  was  the  Second  Punic  War  (218-202  b.c).  It  was 
waged  mainly  in  Italy  itself;  and  it  is  notable  for  the  daz- 
zling career  of  Hannibal  (so  that  Roman  historians  called  it 
"the  Hannibalic  war")  and  for  bringing  the  Greek  kingdoms 
of  the  East  into  hostile  contact  with  Rome. 

366.  Occasion:  Carthage  in  Spain.  —  Rome's  policy  of  " blun- 
der and  plunder"  in  seizing  Sardinia  gave  Carthage  excuse 
enough  for  war,  if  she  could  find  leaders  and  resources.  These- 
were  both  furnished  by  the  great  Barca  family.  Hamilcar 
Barca  had  been  the  greatest  general  and  the  only  hero  of  the 
First  Punic  War.  From  Rome's  high-handed  treachery  in  Sar- 
dinia, he  had  imbibed  a  deathless  hatred  for  that  state ;  and 

1  The  features  of  the  system  are  treated  in  §§  401-404. 
*  Spain  was  the  important  territory  that  passed  to  Rome  as  a  result  of  the 
war,  but  the  struggle  did  not  begin  as  a  war  for  Spain. 


§366]  SPAIN  — THE   SECOND   PUNIC   WAR.  321 

immediately  after  putting  down  the  Mercenary  War,  he  had 
begun  to  prepare  for  another  conflict.  To  offset  the  loss  of  the 
great  Mediterranean  islands  and  to  provide  a  new  base  of  oper- 
ations, he  sought  to  strengthen  Carthaginian  dominion  in 
Spain.  The  mines  of  that  country,  he  saw,  would  furnish  the 
needful  wealth,  and  its  hardy  tribes,  when  disciplined,  would 
make  an  unsurpassed  infantry. 

When  Hamilcar  was  about  to  cross  to  Spain,  in  236  B.C.,  he 
swore  his  son  Hannibal  at  the  altar  to  eternal  hostility  to 
Rome.  Hannibal  was  then  a  boy  of  nine  years.  He  followed 
Hamilcar  to  the  wars,  and,  as  a  youth,  became  a  dashing  cav- 
alry officer  and  the  idol  of  the  rude  soldiery.  He  used  his 
camp  leisure  to  store  his  mind  with  all  the  culture  of  Greece. 
At  twenty-six,  he  succeeded  to  the  command  in  Spain.  He 
possessed  in  rare  degree  the  ability  to  secure  the  unwavering 
devotion  of  fickle,  mercenary  troops,  and  to  bind  his  officers  to 
him  by  enduring  ties.  He  was  a  statesman  of  a  high  order, 
and  possibly  the  greatest  captain  in  history.  No  friendly  pen 
has  left  us  a  record  of  him ;  Eoman  annalists  have  even 
sought  to  stain  his  fame  with  envious  slander :  but,  through  it 
all,  his  character  shines  out  chivalrous,  noble,  heroic,  and  pure.^ 
Says  Colonel  Dodge :  — 

"Putting  aside  Roman  hate,  there  is  not  in  history  a  figure  more 
noble  in  purity,  more  radiant  in  patriotism,  more  heroic  in  genius,  more 
pathetic  in  its  misfortunes." 

Hannibal  won  the  Spaniards  rapidly,  carried  the  Carthagin- 
ian frontier  to  the  Ebro,  collected  a  magnificent  army  of 
over  a  hundred  thousand  men,  and  besieged  Saguntum,  an 
ancient  Greek  colony  on  the  east  coast.  Fearing  Carthaginian 
advance,  Saguntum  had  sought  Roman  alliance;  and  now, 
"jvhen  Carthage  refused  to  disavow  Hannibal,  Rome  declared 
war  (218  b.c). 

lOn  Hannibal,  read  Mommsen,  II.  24^-245;  Ihne,  II.  147-152,  170,  190, 
191,  251;  Smith's  Rome  and  Carthage;  and  especially  Dodge's  Hannibal^ 
614-653. 


322  WINNING  THE   WESTERN  MEDITERRANEAN.       [§367 

367.  Hannibal*s  Invasion  of  Italy :  to  Cannae.  —  Rome  had 
intended  to  take  the  offensive,  and  indeed,  she  dispatched  one 
consul  in  a  leisurely  way  to  Spain,  and  started  the  other  for 
Africa  by  way  of  Sicily.  But  Hannibal's  audacious  rapidity 
disconcerted  all  plans.  In  five  months  he  had  crossed  the  Pyr- 
enees and  the  Ehone,  fighting  his  way  through  the  Gallic 
tribes;  forced  the  unknown  passes  of  the  Alps,  under  condi- 
tions that  made  it  a  feat  paralleled  only  by  Alexanders  passage 
of  the  Hindukush;  and,  leaving  the  bones  of  three  fourths 
his  army  between  the  Ebro  and  the  Po,  startled  Italy  by  ap- 
pearing in  Cisalpine  Gaul,  with  twenty-six  thousand  "heroic 
shadows,"  to  attack  a  population  of  nearly  one  million  fight- 
ing men.  With  these  "  emaciated  scarecrows "  the  same  fall 
he  -swiftly  destroyed  two  hastily  gathered  Roman  armies  —  at 
the  Tidnus  and  at  the  Trebia;  and  the  recently  pacified  Gallic 
tribes  then  rallied  turbulently  to  his  support.  The  following 
spring  he  crossed  the  Apennines,  caught  a  Roman  army  of 
forty  thousand  men,  blinded  with  morning  mist,  in  a  narrow 
defile  near  LaTce  Trasimene,  and  annihilated  it  there ;  and  then 
carried  fire  and  sword  through  Italy.  The  wary  Roman  dic- 
tator, Quintus  Fdbius  Mojximus,  adopted  the  wise  tactics  of 
delay  ^  to  wear  out  Hannibal  and  to  gain  breathing  time  for 
Rome;  but  popular  demagogues  murmured  that  the  senate 
protracted  the  war  to  gain  glory  for  the  aristocratic  generals, 
and  the  following  summer  the  new  consuls  were  given  ninety 
thousand  men,  with  orders  to  crush  the  daring  invader.  The 
result  was  the  battle  of  Cannae  —  "a  carnival  of  cold  steel, 
a  butchery,  not  a  battle."  Hannibal  lost  six  thousand  men. 
Rome  lost  sixty  thousand  dead  and  twenty  thousand  prisoners. 
A  consul,  a  fourth  of  the  senators,  nearly  all  her  officers,  and 
over  a  fifth  of  the  fighting  population  of  the  city,  perished ; 
and  the  camps  of  her  two  armies  fell  into  Carthaginian  hands. 
Hannibal  sent  home  a  bushel  of  gold  rings  from  the  hands  of 
fallen  Roman  nobles. 

1  From  which  we  get  the  term  "  Fabian  policy."  Fabius  was  given  the 
nickname  "Cunctator"  (Laggard)  by  the  Roman  populace. 


SPAIN  — THE   SECOND   PUNIC   WAR.  323 

368.  Fidelity  of  the  Latins  and  Italians  to  Rome.  —  But   the 

victory  yielded  small  fruit.  Hannibal's  only  real  chance 
within  Italy  had  been  that  brilliant  victories  might  break  up 
the  Roman  confederacy  and  bring  over  to  his  side  the  subject 
allies.  Therefore,  as  after  his  earlier  successes,  he  now  freed 
his  Italian  prisoners  without  ransom,  proclaiming  that  he 
warred  only  on  Rome  and  that  he  came  to  liberate  Italy. 
The  mountain  tribes  of  the  south,  eager  for  plunder,  did  join 
him,  as  did  one  great  city,  Capua,  and,  three  years  later, 
irritated  by  a  cruel  Roman  blunder,  some  of  the  Greek  towns. 
But  the  other  cities  —  colonies,  Latins,  or  allies  —  closed  their 
gates  as  resolutely  as  Rome  herself,  —  and  so  gave  marvelous 
testimony  to  the  excellence  of  Roman  rule  and  to  the  national 
Italian  spirit  it  had  fostered. 

369.  Rome's  Grandeur  in  Disaster.  —  Rome's  own  greatness 
showed  grandly  in  the  hour  of  terror  after  Cannae,  when  any 
other  people  would  have  given  up  the  conflict  in  despair.  A 
plot  among  some  faint-hearted  nobles  to  abandon  Italy  was 
stifled  in  the  camp ;  and  the  surviving  consul,  Varro,  set  him- 
self promptly  and  courageously  to  reorganize  the  pitiful  wreck- 
age of  his  army.  Varro  had  been  elected  in  a  bitter  partisan 
struggle  against  the  unanimous  opposition  of  the  aristocracy, 
and  (with  undoubted  merits  in  personal  character)  he  had 
proved  utterly  lacking  in  military  talent.  He  now  returned  to 
Rome,  expecting  to  face  stern  judges.  At  Carthage  a  general 
so  placed  would  probably  have  been  nailed  to  a  cross ;  at  Rome, 
faction  and  criticism  were  silenced,  and  the  senate  showed  its 
own  nobility  by  publicly  giving  its  thanks  to  the  general  "  be- 
cause  he  had  not  despaired  of  the  republic."  Before  the  end 
of  the  year,  another  army  under  a  new  consul  was  cut  to  pieces, 
and  by  losses  elsewhere  the  senate  had  fallen  to  less  than  half 
its  numbers ;  ^  but  with  stern  temper  and  splendid  tenacity 
Rome  refused  even  to  receive  Hannibal's  envoys  or  to  consider 
his  moderate  proposals  for  peace ;  nor  would  she  in  this  crisis 

1  One  hundred  and  seventy-seven  new  members  were  enrolled  the  next  year. 

/ 


324         WINNING  THE   WESTERN  MEDITERRANEAN.       [§370 

even  ransom  prisoners,  since  they  had  not  chosen  to  die  for  the 
republic.  The  senate  shortened  the  days  of  mourning ;  it  en- 
rolled slaves,  old  men,  boys,  and  the  criminals  from  the  prisons, 
arming  them  with  the  trophies  from  the  temples,  and  managed 
to  put  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  more  troops  into  the 
field  —  not  only  refusing  to  recall  a  man  from  Spain  or  Sicily, 
but  sending  new  forces  to  those  points.  Over  a  third  of  the 
adult  male  population  had  perished  in  three  years,  or  were  in 
the  camp,  withdrawn  from  industry.  Still,  taxes  were  doubled, 
almost  crushing  the  weakened  power  of  payment ;  and  in  addi- 
tion, the  rich  gave  cheerfully  far  beyond  these  demands,  while 
all  creditors  of  the  state  willingly  accepted  delay  in  payment. 

370.  Neglect  of  the  Sea  and  Lack  of  Concerted  Action  by  Car- 
thage and  her  Allies.  —  HannibaPs  other  possible  chance,  that 
outside  Italy,  lay  in  a  general  Mediterranean  war  and  in  strong 
reenforcements  from  Carthage.  Philip  V.  of  Macedon  did  ally 
himself  with  Hannibal,  but  acted  indecisively  and  too  late; 
Syracuse,  too,  joined  Carthage,  but  its  new  tyrant  was  incapa- 
ble, and  in  212  b.c.  it  fell,  after  a  memorable  three  years'  siege.^ 
Strangely,  Carthage  made  no  serious  attempt  to  recover  com- 
mand of  the  sea ;  ^  while  Rome  guarded  her  coasts  with  effi- 
cient fleets,  and  transported  her  armies  at  will. 

371.  Changed  Character  of  the  War,  after  Cannae. — Rome 
now  strained  every  nerve  for  success  abroad,  where  her  great 
enemy  could  not  act  in  person.  Step  by  step  the  Roman  Scipio 
brothers  forced  back  the  Carthaginian  frontier  in  Spain,  cut 
Hannibal's  lines  of  land  communication,  and  for  many  years 
ruined  all  his  hopes  of  reenforcement  from  that  quarter.  After 
the  defeat  and  death  of  the  two  Scipios,  Rome  promptly 
hurried  in  fresh  forces  under  the  younger  and  greater  Publius 

1  A  siege  notable  for  the  scientific  inventions  of  Archimedes  (  §  259)  used  in 
the  defense.  The  philosopher  was  killed  in  the  indiscriminate  massacre  that 
followed  the  capture. 

2  Read  Mahan,  Influence  of  Sea  Power  in  History,  14-21,  and  also  Introduc- 
tion, iv.-viL 


§371]  SPAIN  — THE   SECOND   PUNIC    WAR.  325 

Cornelius  Sdpio,  who  in  masterly  fashion  continued  the  work 
of  his  father  and  uncle.  In  Italy  itself,  the  policy  of  Fabius 
was  again  adopted,  varied  by  the  telling  blows  of  the  vigorous 
soldier  Marcelliis  (the  "  Sword,"  as  Fabius  was  the  "  Shield," 
of  Kome). 

Hannibal's  hopes  had  been  blasted  in  the  moment  of  victory. 
Rome  had  fallen  back  upon  an  iron  constancy  and  steadfast 
caution;  her  Italian  subjects  had  shown  a  steady  fidelity  even 
more  ominous  to  the  invader;  while  Carthage  proved  supine, 
and  her  allies  lukewarm.  Against  such  conditions  all  the 
great  African's  genius  in  war  and  in  diplomacy  wore  itself  out 
in  vain.  For  thirteen  years  more  he  maintained  himself  in 
Italy  without  reenforcement  in  men  or  money,  —  always  win- 
ning a  battle  when  he  could  engage  the  enemy  in  the  field  in 
person,  and  directing  operations  and  policy  as  best  he  might 
in  Spain,  Sicily,  Macedonia,  and  Africa;  but  it  was  a  war 
waged  by  one  supreme  genius  against  the  most  powerful  and 
resolute  nation  in  the  world.  And  so  the  struggle  now  entered 
upon  its  last,  long,  wasting  stage.  It  became  a  record  of  sieges 
and  marches  and  countermarches,  in  which  Hannibal's  genius 
was  no  doubt  as  marvelous  as  ever,  earning  him  from  modern 
military  critics  the  title,  "  Father  of  Strategy,"  but  in  which 
there  are  no  more  of  the  dazzling  results  that  mark  the  first 
campaigns.  Hannibal's  Spanish  veterans  died  off,  too,  to  be 
replaced  as  best  they  might  by  local  recruits  in  Italy,  and 
gradually  the  Romans  learned  the  art  of  war  from  their  great 
enemy. 

"  With  the  battle  of  Cannae  the  breathless  interest  in  the  war  ceases  ; 
its  surging  mass,  broken  on  the  walls  of  the  Roman  fortresses,  .  .  .  foams 
away  in  ruin  and  devastation  through  south  Italy,  —  ever  victorious,  ever 
receding.  Rome,  assailed  on  all  sides  by  open  foe  and  forsworn  friend, 
driven  to  her  last  man  and  last  coin,  '  ever  great  and  greater  grows '  in 
the  strength  of  her  strong  will  and  loyal  people,  widening  the  circle  round 
her  with  rapid  blows  in  Sicily,  Sardinia,  Spain,  and  Macedon,  while  she 
slowly  loosens  the  grip  fastened  on  her  throat  at  home,  till  in  the  end  .  .  . 
the  final  fight  on  African  sands  at  the  same  moment  closes  the  struggle 
for  life  and  seats  her  mistress  of  the  world."  —  How  and  Leigh,  199. 


326  WINNING  THE   WESTERN   MEDITERRANEAN.       [§372 

372.  "Hannibal  at  the  Gates." — One  more  dramatic  scene 
marked  Hannibal's  career  in  Italy.  The  Romans  had  besieged 
Capua.  In  a  daring  attempt  to  relieve  his  ally,  Hannibal 
marched  to  the  very  walls  of  Rome,  ravaging  the  fields  about 
the  city.  The  Romans,  however,  were  not  to  be  enticed  out  to 
a  rash  engagement,  nor  would  the  army  around  Capua  be  drawn 
from  its  prey.  The  only  result  of  this  desperate  stroke  was  a 
fruitless  fright — such  that  for  generations  Roman  mothers 
stilled  their  children  by  the  terror-bearing  phrase,  "  Hannibal 
at  the  Gates  ! "  Roman  stories  relate,  however,  that  citizens 
were  found,  even  in  that  hour  of  fear,  to  show  a  defiant  confi- 
dence by  buying  eagerly  at  a  public  sale  the  land  where  the 
invader  lay  encamped. 

373.  The  Second  Carthaginian  Invasion.  — Meantime,  in  Spain, 
Hannibal's  brother,  Hasdrubal,  had  been  contending  against 
the  crushing  force  of  the  Scipios,  with  the  skill  and  devotion 
of  his  house.  Finally,  in  207  b.c,  by  able  maneuvers,  he 
eluded  the  Roman  generals,  and  started  with  a  veteran  army  to 
reenforce  Hannibal.  Rome's  peril  was  never  greater  than  when 
this  second  Barcide  crossed  the  Alps  successfully  with  fifty-six 
thousand  men  and  fifteen  elephants. 

The  republic  put  forth  its  supreme  effort.  One  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  men  were  thrown  between  the  two  Carthaginian 
armies,  which  together  numbered  some  eighty  thousand.  An 
intercepted  messenger  from  Hasdrubal  gave  the  Romans  an 
accidental  but  decisive  advantage.  The  consul,  Claudius  Nero, 
with  audacity  learned  of  Hannibal  himself,  left  part  of  his  force 
to  deceive  that  leader,  and,  hurrying  northward  with  the  speed 
of  life  and  death,  fell  upon  Hasdrubal  with  crushing  numbers 
at  the  Metaurus.  The  ghastly  head  of  his  long-expected 
brother,  flung  with  brutal  contempt  into  his  camp,^  was  the 
first  notice  to  Hannibal  of  the  ruin  of  his  family  and  his 
cause. 


1  A  strange  contrast  to  the  chivalrous  treatment  that  Hannibal  accorded 
the  bodies  of  Marcellus  and  of  the  Roman  generals  at  Cannae  and  elsewhere. 


§375]  SPAIN  — THE   SECOND  PUNIC   WAR.  327 

374.    Scipio  carries  the  War  into  Africa :  Zama  and  Peace.  — 

Still  Hannibal  remained  invincible  in  the  iield  in  Italy.  But 
Rome  now  carried  the  war  into  Africa.  Sdpio  had  rapidly  re- 
duced all  Spsftn  after  Hasdrubal's  departure ;  and  in  204  b.c. 
he  was  sent  with  a  great  army  to  attack  Carthage  itself.  Two 
years  later,  to  meet  this  peril,  Hannibal  sadly  obeyed  a  recall, 
"leaving  the  country  of  his  enemy,"  says  Livy,  "with  more 
regret  than  many  an  exile  has  left  his  own  " ;  and  the  war 
closed  with  his  first  and  only  defeat,  at  Zama  near  Carthage,  in 
202  B.C.,  where  Scipio  earned  the  proud  surname  "Africanus."^ 
Carthage  sued  for  peace.  To  obtain  it,  she  gave  up  Spain 
and  her  islands  in  the  western  Mediterranean,  surrendered  all 
her  war  elephants  and  all  her  ships  of  war  save  ten,  paid  a 
huge  war  indemnity,  and  became  a  dependent  ally  of  Rome. 

376.    The  Settlement  in  Italy It   remains   to  note   Rome's 

terrible  vengeance  upon  her  few  unfaithful  allies.  Syracuse^^ 
which  had  been  one  of  the  largest  and  richest  cities  of  the 
world,  and  indeed  contained  a  large  faithful  Roman  party,  had 
been  sacked  by  a  merciless  soldiery,  and  was  never  to  recover 
its  former  proud  eminence.  Its  rare  works  of  art,  the  accumu- 
lations of  centuries,  were  removed  to  Rome.  More  harsh  was 
the  fate  of  Capiia^.  That  "  second  city  in  Italy  "  ceased  to  ex- 
ist as  a  city.  Its  leading  men  were  massacred;  most  of  the 
rest  of  tKe^ population  were  sold  as  slaves;  the  few  remaining 
settlers  were  governed  absolutely  by  an  annual  prefect  sent 
from  Rome ;  and  Romam^lonies  of  war  veterans  were  planted 
upon  its  lands.  The  people  of  the  Bruttian  peninsula  (who 
had  joined  Hannibal)  became  the  Helots  of  Rome,  and  the 
unfaithful  mcantain  tribes  paid  in  loss  of  lands  and  privileges; 


1  A  Roman  had  at  least  three  names.  The  gentile  name  was  the  nomen,  the 
most  important  of  the  three;  it  came  iu  the  middle.  The  third  (the  cogno- 
men) marked  the  family.  The  first  (praenomen)  was  the  individual  name 
(like  our  baptismal  names) .  Then  a  Roman  often  received  also  a  surname  for 
some  achievement  or  characteristic.  Thus  Puhlius  Cornelius  Scipio  Africanus 
was  the  individual  Puhlius  of  the  Scipio  family  of  the  great  Cornelian  gens, 
surnamed  Africanus  for  his  conquest  of  Africa. 


328  WINNING  THE   WESTERN   MEDITERRANEAN.       [§376 

while  the  thorough  reduction  and  Latinization  of  untrustworthy- 
Cisalpine  Gaul  and  of  Liguria  went  on  slowly  through  many 
campaigns. 

376.  The  Result  of  the  Second  War.  —  Eome  had  been  fight- 
ing for  existence,  but  she  had  won  world  dominion.  The  result 
was  apparent  at  once  in  the  West,  where  no  rival  remained ; 
in  the  East  it  was  to  show  more  slowly.  There  now  began  an 
imperial  system  in  which  the  barbarous,  unorganized  West  and 
the  small  states  and  mighty  kingdoms  of  Alexander's  realms 
were  alike  to  lose  themselves.  And  this  result  came  about 
almost  inevitably,  and,  to  a  great  extent,  in  spite  of  Rome's 
reluctance.  Italy,  from  the  Alps  to  the  promontories  of  Sicily, 
she  had  designed  to  rule.  Beyond  these  limits,  dominion  was 
at  first  forced  upon  her.  In  the  West  she  at  once  accepted  the 
situation  frankly,  as  the  heir  of  Carthage :  the  realm  formerly 
ruled  by  that  power  could  not  be  abandoned  to  anarchy  or 
barbarism,  and  Eome  was  under  obligation  to  organize  and 
rule  the  empire  that  had  fallen  to  her.  But  in  the  East, 
Rome  hesitated  honestly  and  long,  until  events  thrust  empire 
upon  her  there,  also  (§§  386-389).i 

Special  Reports. — 1.  Stories  of  Hannibal's  great  battles  —  Trasi- 
mene,  Cannae,  Zama  —  and  of  his  passage  of  the  Alps.  2.  Hannibal  in 
south  Italy  after  Cannae.  3.  Why  Hannibal  did  not  attack  Rome  itself 
after  Cannae.  4.  The  story  of  Hannibal  after  Zama.  5.  Anecdotes 
of  the  Scipios.        6.    Story  of  the  siege  and  ruin  of  Syracuse. 

V.   THE   WEST  FROM  201   TO   146  B.C. 
A.    Spain. 

377.  Heroic  War  for  Independence.  —  Two  new  provinces  were 
created  in  Spain,  for  which  two  more  magistrates  were  elected 

1  The  resulting  policy  in  the  West  for  the  next  fifty  years  —  until  expansion 
was  complete  in  that  direction  —  is  the  topic  of  Division  V.  It  is  logically  part 
of  the  story  we  have  been  telling.  The  trend  of  events  is  so  different  in  the 
East  that  a  separate  chapter  is  given  to  expansion  in  that  direction  (ch.  vii.), 
although  the  story  covers  the  same  half  century. 


§378]  THE    WEST  FROM  201   TO   146  B.C.  329 

annually.  Unhappily,  owing  to  rapacity  in  some  of  these 
officers  and  to  incapacity  in  others,  the  proud  and  warlike 
Spanish  tribes  were  driven  into  a  long  war  for  independence, 
marked  by  the  heroic  leadership  of  the  Spanish  patriot, 
Viriathus,  and  by  Roman  baseness  and  cruelty  such  as  have 
characterized  few  wars.  A  Roman  general  massacred  a  tribe 
that  had  submitted.  Of  seventeen  survivors,  one  proved 
so   unconquerable    a    leader   of    revolt   that   another   Roman 


UIMIUVS'U'P- INPEIRATORDECRElVfT 
VTE  l'aVEIHAStEN5I  VM.SERVEI 
IN'TVRRiUASCVTANAHABlTAReNT 
LEIB  ER  EI<  ESSEN  T-ACRVAAOPPJDVMOM 


— V  avOD-EA.rEMreSTAT&POJEDISENT 
^iTEMPOSSIDERE-HABEREaVE 


lOVSfT'  pVAA'P0PLVi,SEMATVSaVE 
p.t5MAh/V5'VEUL£T.ACT  INCASTREI^ 
APXn-kfE&R 


Decree  of  L.  Aemilius  Paulus,  Praetor  of  Spain,  189  B.C.,  regulating 
the  position  of  a  client-community. 

general  procured  his  assassination  by  hired  murderers.  Rome 
itself  rejected  treaties  after  they  had  purchased  the  lives  of 
Roman  armies.  Spanish  towns,  after  gallant  resistance,  were 
wiped  from  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  so  others  chose  wholesale 
suicide  rather  than  surrender.  These  were  some  of  the  means 
by  which  Rome  retained  its  hold  in  this  miserable  period  upon 
its  Spanish  provinces.^ 

378.   Romanization.  —  The  struggle  closed  only  in  133  B.C., 
but  all  this  time  the  Romanization  of  the  province  had  been 

1  Mommsen,  III.  215-234. 


330         WINNING  THE   WESTERN   MEDITERRANEAN.       [§  379 

going  on.  Traders  and  speculators  had  flocked  to  the  sea- 
ports; the  Roman  legionaries,  quartered  in  Spain  for  many 
years  at  a  time,  married  Spanish  wives,  and,  when  relieved 
from  military  service,  settled  there.  No  sooner  were  the  rest- 
less interior  tribes  fully  subdued  than  there  appeared  the 
promise  —  to  be  so  well  kept  later  —  that  Spain  would  become 
"  more  Roman  than  Rome  itself." 


B.  •  Africa.  —  The  Third  Punic  War  (the  War 
FOR  Africa). 

379.   Rome  seeks  Perfidious  Pretext  against  Carthage.  —  Even 

before  Spain  was  pacified,  hatred  and  greed  had  led  to  the 
seizure  of  the  remaining  realms  of  Carthage.  That  state  was 
now  powerless  for  harm ;  but  Roman  fear  was  cruel,  and 
demanded  its  utter  destruction.  The  needless  conflict  was 
forced  relentlessly  upon  the  unhappy  Carthaginians  by  a  long 
series  of  persecutions ;  and  it  was  marked  by  -the  blackest 
perfidy  on  the  part  of  Rome  and  by  the  final  desperate  heroism 
of  Carthage. 

First,  that  city  was  called  upon  to  surrender  Hannibal  to 
Roman  vengeance.^  Then  it  was  vexed  by  constant  annoyances 
in  Africa  on  the  part  of  Massinissa,  Prince  of  Numidia. 
Massinissa  had  been  Rome's  ally  in  the  latter  part  of  the  Second 
Punic  War,  and  had  been  rewarded  by  new  dominions  carved 
out  of  Carthaginian  territory.  Now,  encouraged  by  Rome,  he 
encroached  more  and  more,  seizing  piece  after  piece  of  the 
district  that  had  been  left  to  the  vanquished  city.  Repeat- 
edly Carthage  appealed  to  Rome,  but  her  just  complaints 
brought  no  redress.  The  Roman  commissioners  that  were  sent 
to  act  as  arbiters  —  with  secret  orders  beforehand  to  favor 
Massinissa  —  carried  back  to  Rome  only  a  greater  fear  of  the 

1  When  the  hero  escaped  to  the  East,  Roman  petty  hatred  followed  him 
from  country  to  country,  until,  to  avoid  falling  into  Roman  hands,  he  took 
his  own  life,  "  proving  in  a  lifelong  struggle  with  fate,  that  success  is  in  no 
way  necessary  to  greatness." 


§381]  AFRICA  — THE  THIRD  PUNIC   WAR.  331 

reviving  industry  and  wealth  of  Carthage,  and  told  the  aston- 
ished Roman  senate  of  a  city  with  crowded  streets,  with 
treasury  and  arsenals  full,  and  with  its  harbors  thronged  with 
shipping.  From  this  time  (157  b.c.)  the  narrow-minded  but 
powerful  and  zealous  Cato  closed  every  speech  in  the  senate, 
no  matter  what  the  subject,  vdth  the  phrase  ^^  Delenda  est 
Carthago  "  (Carthage  must  be  blotted  out). 

380.  Rome  declares  War;  Carthage  is  treacherously  Disarmed. 

—  Still  the  cautious  submissiveness  of  Carthage,  despite  the 
flagrant  injustice  of  Rome,  gave  no  handle  to  Roman  hate, 
until  at  last,"  when  Massinissa  had  pushed  his  seizures  almost 
up  to  the  gates,  Carthage  took  up  arms  against  him.  By  her 
treaty  with  Rome  she  had  promised  to  engage  in  no  war  with- 
out Roman  permission ;  and  Rome  at  once  seized  the  excuse  to 
declare  war.  In  vain  Carthage  then  punished  her  leaders'  and 
proffered  abject  submission.  Her  envoys  were  promised  free- 
dom and  independence  if  the  city  complied  with  the  further 
demands  of  Rome.  The  Roman  fleet  and  army  proceeded  to 
Africa  with  secret  orders,  and  an  act  of  masterful  treachery 
was  played  out  by  successive  steps.  Hostages  were  demanded 
and  received  —  three  hundred  boys  from  the  noblest  families. 
The  walls  were  dismantled  and  the  arsenals  stripped,  three 
thousand  catapults  and  two  hundred  thousand  stand  of  arms, 
with  vast  military  supplies,  being  sent  in  long  lines  of  wagons 
to  the  Roman  army  at  Utica;  then  the  shipping  was  all  sur- 
rendered; and  finally,  when  Carthage  was  supposedly  helpless, 
came  the  announcement  that  the  city  must  be  destroyed  and 
the  people  removed  to  some  spot  at  least  ten  miles  inland  from 
the  element  on  which  from  dim  antiquity  they  had  founded 
their  wealth  and  power. 

381.  Heroic  Resistance.  —  Despair  blazed  into  passionate 
wrath,  and  the  Carthaginians  fitly  chose  death  rather  than 
such  ruin  and  exile.  Carelessly  enough,  the  Roman  army 
remained  at  a  distance  for  some  days,  and  meanwhile  the  dis- 
mantled and  disarmed  town  became  one  great  workshop  foi 


332         WINNING  THE   WESTERN  MEDITERRANEAN.       [§382 

war.  Women  gave  their  hair  to  make  cords  for  catapults; 
the  temples  were  ransacked  for  arms,  and  torn  down  for  timber 
and  metal ;  and  to  the  angry  dismay  of  Rome,  Carthage  stood 
a  four  years'  siege,  holding  out  heroically  against  famine, 
pestilence,  and  war.  At  last,  in  146  b.c,  the  legions  forced 
their  way  over  the  walls.  For  seven  days  more,  the  fighting 
continued  from  house  to  house,  until  at  last  a  miserable  rem- 
nant surrendered  —  fifty  thousand  of  a  population  of  seven 
hundred  thousand.  The  commander  HasdrubaP  did  at  the 
last  moment  make  his  peace  with  the  Eoman  general ;  but  his 
disdainful  wife,  taunting  him  from  the  burning  temple  roof  as 
he  knelt  at  Scipio's  feet,  first  slew  their  two  boys  and  then  cast 
herself  with  them  into  the  ruins ;  and  numbers  more  chose  like- 
wise to  die  in  the  flames  rather  than  pass  into  Roman  slavery. 

382.  Carthage  is  ** blotted  out":  Province  of  Africa. —  For 
many  days  the  city  was  given  up  to  pillage ;  then,  by  express 
orders  from  Rome,  it  was  deliberately  burned  to  the  ground, 
and  its  site  plowed  up,  sown  to  salt,  and  cursed.  To  carry 
out  this  crime  fell  to  the  lot  of  one  of  the  purest  and  noblest 
characters  Rome  ever  produced,  —  Publius  Cornelius  Scipio 
AemiUanus,  the  nephew  and  adopted  grandson  of  Scipio  Afri- 
canus.^  As  this  last  great  Scipio  watched  the  smoldering  ruins 
(they  burned  for  seventeen  days)  with  his  friend  Polybius  the 
historian,  he  spoke  his  fear  that  some  day  Rome  might  suffer  a 
like  fate,  and  he  was  heard  to  repeat  Homer's  lines :  — 

"  Yet  come  it  will,  the  day  decreed  by  fate, 
The  day  when  thou,  Imperial  Troy,  must  bend, 
And  see  thy  warriors  fall,  thy  glories  end." 

What  was  left  of  the  ancient  territory  of  Carthdige  became 
the  Province  of  Africa,  with  the  capital  at  Utica ;  and,  about 
two  centuries  later,  under  the  Roman  Empire,  north  Africa  was 
to  become  a  chief  seat  of  Roman  civilization  and  settlement.^ 

1  Not  the  Barcide  Hasdrubal,  of  course. 

2  Scipio  Aemilianus  received  the  title  of  Africanus  the  Younger. 

8  Special  reports :  the  final  siege  of  Carthage ;  Massinissa  and  the  king- 
dom he  created. 


§382]  AFRICA  — THE   THIRD  PUNIC    WAR.  333 

For  Further  Reading.  —  With  the  beginning  of  the  Second  Punic 
War,  Livy  becomes  an  important  authority  (his  account  of  the  First  War 
unfortunately  is  among  the  lost  books  of  his  History).  Polybius  wrote 
nearer  the  times  (at  the  close  of  the  Tliird  War),  and  is  the  greater 
historian.    Plutarch's  Lives  (Fabius,  Marcellus)  make  fascinating  reading. 

Mommsen  (bk.  iii.  chs.  i.-ii.,  iv.-vii.),  and  Ihne  (II.  3-115,  143-484,  and 
III.  320-407)  continue  to  be  the  two  great  modern  guides.  Pelham's 
excellence  for  certain  parts  of  the  story  is  noted  in  the  text ;  his  arrange- 
ment is  admirable.  For  the  struggle  with  Carthage,  Smith's  Borne  and 
Carthage  (Epochs)  is  convenient ;  and  students  will  enjoy  Church's  Car- 
thage (Story  of  the  Nations).  For  the  First  Punic  War,  Freeman's  Story 
of  Sicily  (ch.  xiv.)  is  good.  For  the  Second  Punic  War,  Arnold's  History 
is  perhaps  the  best  narrative.  See,  also,  Dodge's  Hannibal  (Captains), 
and  Morris'  Hannibal  (Heroes). 


CHAPTER   VII. 

"WINNING   or   THE  EAST,    201-146  B.C. 

I.    AN  ATTEMPT  AT  PROTECTORATES. 

383.  Earlier  Beginnings:  the  Illyrian  Pirates  and  the  First 
Macedonian  War.  —  Ever  since  the  repulse  of  Pyrrhus,  Eonie  had 
been  drifting  into  contact  with  the  Greek  kingdoms  of  the 
East.  With  Egypt  she  had  an  intimate  alliance  and  close 
commercial  intercourse.  Between  the  first  and  second  Punic 
wars,  too,  she  had  chastised  the  formidable  pirate  states  of  the 
Illyrian  coasts,  and  so,  as  the  guardian  of  order,  had  come  into 
friendly  relations  and  alliance  with  some  of  the  cities  in  Greece. 

Further  than  this,  Rome  showed  no  desire  to  go;  but  in 
214  B.C.  the  league  between  Philip  V.  of  Macedon  and  Hanni- 
bal (§  370)  drew  her  into  war  with  Macedon.  This  first 
Macedonian  War  closed  in  205  b.c,  without  material  change 
in  her  relations  in  the  East,  and  indeed  she  had  waged  it  by 
means  of  her  Aetolian  allies,  and  only  to  prevent  a  Macedo- 
nian invaMonj  but  it  made  later  struggles  inevitable. 

384.  Second  Macedonian  War.  —  In  205,  Philip  and  Antiochus 
of  Syria  leagued  to  divide  between  them  the  dominions  of 
Egypt,  the  ally  of  Rome,  left  just  then  to  a  boy  king.  Egypt 
was  already  becoming  the  granary  of  the  Mediterranean,  and 
Rome  could  not  wisely  see  it  pass  into  hostile  hands.  Philip 
also  attacked  Athens,  another  ally;  and  as  soon  as  Rome's 
hands  were  freed  by  the  peace  with  Carthage  (201  e.g.),  the 
senate  strenuously  persuaded  the  wearied  and  reluctant  Assem- 
bly to  enter  upon  the  Second  Macedonian  War  (200-196  b.c). 
At  Cynoscephalae,  the  pliable  legion  proved  its  superiority  to 
the  unwieldy  phalanx  — the  only  real  fighting   force   of  the 

334 


§386] 


AN  ATTEMPT   AT  PEOTECTORATES. 


335 


East  (§  352).  As  a  result,  Macedonia  became  a  second-rate 
power.  She  was  deprived  of  all  her  possessions  in  Greece, 
Thrace,  and  Asia  Minor,  and  was  made  an  ally  of  Rome.  The 
Greeks  were  proclaimed  free,  and,  along  with  Rhodes  and  Per- 
gamum  and  other  small  states  of  Asia,  became  Rome's  zealous 
and  grateful  allies,  virtually  under  a  Roman  protectorate. 

385-  The  War  with  Antiochus  of  Syria.  —  Meanwhile  Anti- 
ochus,  who  had  sheltered  Hannibal,  had  also  been  plundering 
Egypt's  possessions  in  Asia,  and  how  he  turned  to  seize  Thrace, 
Greece,  Pergamum,  and  Rhodes.     Rome  sincerely  dreaded  a 


conflict  with  the  "  Great  King,"  the  Lord  of  Asia ;  but  she 
had  no  choice  unless  she  would  desert  her  allies.  The  struggle 
proved  easy  and  brief.  In  the  second  campaign,  in  190  b.c, 
Roman  legions  for  the  first  time  invaded  Asia,  and  at  Magnesia, 
in  Lydia,  they  shattered  the  power  of  Syria.  That  kingdom 
was  reduced  in  territory  and  power,  somewhat  as  Macedon  had 
been ;  Rome's  allies  were  rewarded  with  gifts  of  territory ;  and 
most  of  the  Greek  cities  and  small  states  of  Asia  were  declared 
free,  and  really  became  friendly  dependents  of  Rome. 

386.    Rome  drawn  on,  against  her  Will,  to  this  System  of  Eastern 
Protectorates.^  —  Thus,  in  eleven  years  (200-190  b.c.)  after  the 


1  Cf .  §  376.    Read  Mommsen,  II.  363  and  413-415,  to  support  the  quotations 
in  this  section. 


336  WINNING  THE   EAST.  [§387 

close  of  the  Second  Punic  War,  Rome  had  set  up  a  virtual  pro- 
tectorate over  all  the  realms  of  Alexander's  successors.  This 
had  come  about,  too,  without  definite  self-seeking  on  her  part ; 
and  so  far  she  seemed  unwilling  to  annex  any  eastern  territory. 

It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  disturbing  forces  in  the  East  had  been 
Macedon  and  Syria  (and  in  Greece,  the  Aetolian  and  Achaean  leagues), 
while  the  forces  that  stood  for  peace  were  Egypt,  Rhodes,  Pergamum, 
and  the  smaller  Greek  states.  These  pacific  powers  had  turned  to  Rome 
for  protection.  Thus  the  motive  back  of  Rome's  advance  was  at  fii-st 
wholly  unlike  that  of  Alexander.  It  is  true  that  the  weakness  of  the 
eastern  states  drew  the  great  western  power  on  and  on,  and  that  her 
own  methods  became  less  and  less  scrupulous.  Cruelty  and  cynical  dis- 
regard for  obligations  more  and  more  stamp  her  conduct.  But,  after 
all,  "compared  with  the  Ptolemies,  Seleucids,  and  Antigonids,her  hands 
were  clean  and  her  rule  bearable.  In  that  intolerable  eastern  hubbub, 
men's  eyes  turned  still  with  envy  and  wonder  to  the  stable  and  well- 
ordered  Republic  of  the  west."  —  How  and  Leigh,  257. 

"The  Roman  senate,  which  so  lately  sat  to  devise  means  to  save 
Rome  from  the  grasp  of  Hannibal,  now  sits  as  a  Court  of  International 
Justice  for  the  whole  civilized  world,  ready  to  hear  the  causes  of  every 
king  or  commonwealth  that  has  any  plaint  against  any  other  king  or 
commonwealth.  .  .  .  The  Roman  Fathers  judge  the  causes  of  powers 
which  in  theory  are  the  equal  allies  of  Rome  ;  they  judge  by  virtue  of  no 
law,  of  no  treaty  ;  they  judge  because  the  common  instinct  of  mankind 
sees  the  one  universal  judge  in  the  one  power  which  has  strength  to  en- 
force its  judgments."  —  Freeman,  Chief  Periods,  58. 

II.    ANNEXATION  —  THE    PROTECTORATES    BECOME    PROV- 
INCES. 

387.  A  Gradual  Process.  —  Rome  could  not  stop  with  protec- 
torates. The  client  states  had  neither  the  blessings  of  real 
liberty  nor  the  assured  good  order  of  provinces ;  and  gradually 
Rome  was  led  into  a  process  of  annexation  in  the  civilized 
East,  as  already  in  the  barbarous  West.  By  146  a.d.,  this  pro- 
cess was  well  under  way ;  and  in  the  next  one  hundred  years 
—  before  the  day  of  the  Caesars  —  the  old  power  of  influence 
over  "  cUUes  "  had  everywhere  transformed  itself  into  dominion 
over  provinces. 


§  389]       THE   PROTECTORATES   BECOME   PROVINCES.  S37 

388.  The  Change  in  Roman  Policy  and  its  Causes.  —  The  occa- 
sions were  of  three  kinds :  (a)  the  intrigues  against  Rome  by- 
Perseus,  the  new  king  of  Macedon;  (b)  the  internal  anarchy 
and  mutual  feuds  between  the  small  Greek  states ;  and  (c)  the 
growing  jealousy  felt  by  Rome  herself  toward  any  marked 
prosperity  on  the  part  of  even  her  most  friendly  allies. 

On  the  whole  the  first  two  causes  worked  in  the  earlier  part 
of  the  period,  and  the  third  and  meaner  one  toward  the  close 
only.  But  unhappily  appetite  for  power  grew  with  its  exer- 
cise ;  and  finally  to  complete  the  extension  of  her  sway  in  the 
East,  where  she  had  at  first  hesitated  over-modestly,  Rome 
sank  to  arts,  treacheries,  and  violences,  as  base  and  high-handed 
as  those  that  marked  her  treatment  of  Carthage. 

389.  A  Few  Great  Steps  in  the  Process.  — The  plots  of 
Perseus  made  inevitable  a  Third  War  with  ^Macedonia,  and  the 
Roman  victory  of  Pydna  (168  b.c.)  closed  the  life  of  that 
ancient  kingdom.  It  was  broken  up  into  four  petty  republics, 
which  were  provinces  of  Rome  in  all  but  name  and  good  order : 
they  paid  tribute,  were  disarmed,  and  were  forbidden  mutual 
intercourse,  but  did  not  at  first  receive  a  Roman  governor  or 
obtain  the  benefits  of  firm  administration.  Seventeen  years 
later  an  attempt  of  a  pretended  son  of  Perseus  to  restore  the 
ancient  monarchy  led  to  the  full  establishment  of  the  Roman 
"  Province  of  Macedonia,"  with  a  Roman  magistrate  at  its  head 
(146  B.C.). 

The  same  year  witnessed  important  rearrangements  in 
Greece.  Various  factions  there  had  sympathized  with  Perseus 
in  his  hopeless  struggle,  and  had  been  sternly  or  cruelly 
punished.  The  Roman  senate  was  called  upon  in  the  years 
that  followed  to  listen  to  ceaseless  wearisome  complaints 
from  one  Greek  city  or  party  against  another,  and  finally  the 
clash  came  with  the  Achaeans,  who  recklessly  defied  repeated 
Roman  warnings.  The  Achaean  confederacy  fell  easily  before 
Roman  arms,  in  146  b.c.  Corinth,  by  order  of  the  senate, 
was  burned  and  its  site  cursed.     Greece  was  not  yet  made  a 


338  WINNING  THE   EAST.  [§390 

province,  but  it  was  treated  as  Macedon  had  been  just  after 
Pydna,  and  was  virtually  ruled  by  the  Koman  governor  of. 
Macedon.^  Thus  the  one  year  146  b.c.  saw  the  last  territory  of 
Carthage  made  a  Roman  province  and  the  first  province 
iormed  in  the  old  empire  of  Alexander,  together  with  the 
.idestruction  of  the  ancient  cities  of  Carthage  and  Corinth. 

The  destruction  of  Corinth  was  a  greater  crime  than  that  of  Carthage, 
Syracuse,  Capua,  or  of  the  other  capitals  that  Roman  municipal  envy- 
laid  low.  Corinth  was  the  great  emporium  of  Greece,  and  its  ruin 
was  due  mainly  to  the  jealousy  of  the  commercial  class  in  Rome.  Its  art 
treasures,  so  far  as  preserved,  became  the  plunder  of  the  Roman  state  ; 
but  much  was  lost.  Polybius  saw  common  soldiers  playing  at  dice,  amid 
the  still  smoking  ruins,  on  the  paintings  of  the  greatest  masters. 

A  few  years  later  (133-Jb.c.)  the  king  of  Pergamum  willed 
to  Rome  his  realms,  which  became  the  new  Province  of  Asia. 
Further  progress  in  the  East  in  this  period  consisted  in  jeal- 
ously reducing  friendly  and  nominally  independent  allies,  like 
Rhodes,  to  a  condition  of  acknowledged  subjection,  and  in 
openly  setting  up  protectorates  over  Egypt  and  Syria. 

It  is  in  this  last  series  of  events  that  Rome's  lust  for  power 
begins  to  show  most  hatefully.  She  had  no  more  generosity 
for  a  strong  ally  than  she  had  magnanimity  toward  a  fallen 
foe,  and  her  treatment  of  Pergamum  gains  little  by  contrast 
with  her  perfidious  dealings  with  Carthage. 


III.    GENERAL  RESULT   IN  146  B.C.  — A  GRAECO-ROMAN 
WORLD   UNDER  ROMAN  SWAY. 

390.  Rome  the  Sole  Great  Power. — In  264  b.c.  Rome  had 
been  one  (and  the  latest)  of  five  Great  Powers  (§  356).  By 
the  peace  of  201  b.c,  after  Zama,  Carthage  disappeared  from 
that  list.  Then,  in  the  next  fifty  years,  Cynoscephalae,  Mag- 
nesia, Pydna,  and  Roman  diplomacy  removed  the  others.     In 

1  A  century  later,  Greece  became  the  Province  of  Achaea.  About  the  same 
time,  Corinth  was  rebuilt  by  Caesar,  and  Carthage  by  Octavius,  to  become 
great  commercial  centers  again. 


§  391]     GRAECO-ROMAN  WORLD  UNDER  ROMAN  SWAY.     339 

146  B.C.  Rome  was  the  sole  Great  Power.  She  had  absorbed 
into  provinces  all  the  dominions  of  Carthage  and  Macedon; 
Egypt  and  Syria  had  become  her  protectorates,  and  all  the 
smaller  states  had  been  brought  within  her  "  sphere  of  influ- 
ence." She  held  the  heritage  of  Alexander  as  well  as  that 
of  Carthage.  Much  extension  of  territory  was  yet  to  come, 
but  the  final  result  was  now  a  foregone  conclusion.  There 
remained  no  state  able  to  dream  of  real  equality  with  Rome. 

391.    Distinction  between  the  Latin  West  and  the  Greek  East.  — 

The  neglect  in  establishing  firmer  order  in  the  East  was  to 
bear  fruits  in  future  wars ;  but  here,  at  the  close  of  the  period, 
we  may  note  that  while  Rome  was  really  mistress  both  East 
and  West,  her  relations  with  the  two  sections  were  widely 
different.  In  the  West,  Rome  appeared  on  the  stage  as  the 
successor  of  Carthage,  and  to  the  majority  of  her  western  sub- 
jects, despite  some  terrible  cruelties  in  war,  she  brought  better 
order  and  higher  civilization  than  they  had  known  —  creating 
a  new  Roman  world  in  which  even  Greek  cities  like  Massilia 
could  lose  themselves  willingly.  In  the  East,  she  appeared 
first  as  the  liberator  of  the  Greeks.  Her  provincial  system 
and  the  good  Roman  order  were  introduced  very  slowly ;  and 
to  the  last,  the  East  remained  Greek,  not  Roman,  in  language, 
customs,  and  thought.  The  Adriatic  continued  to  divide  the 
Latin  and  Greek  civilizations  when  the  two  shared  the  world 
under  the  sway  of  Rome. 


For  Further  Reading.  —  An  admirable  brief  treatment  of  the  expan- 
sion in  the  East,  in  Pelham,  140-157.  Mommsen  and  Ihne  give  sharply- 
opposed  views  of  Rome's  intentions  in  Greece  ;  their  works  may  be  con- 
sulted for  the  period  by  advanced  students.  The  histories  of  Greece  that 
deal  with  this  period  are  useful,  especially  Holm,  IV.,  Thirlwall,  and  Ma- 
haffy.  Plutarch's  Lives  (Aemilius  Pauhis,  Flamininus)  ^  as  usual.  All 
should  read  the  noble  summary  of  the  whole  period  of  Roman  expansion 
in  Freeman's  Chief  Periods^  45-59. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

NEW   CIVIL   STRIFE,    146-49  B.C. 
I.    PRELIMINARY   SURVEY. 

392.  Summary  of  Periods  under  the  Republic.^  —  Republican 
Rome  falls  into  three  broad  divisions. 

a.  An  internal  struggle  between  plebs  and  patricians,  re- 
sulting finally  in  a  fusion  of  the  old  classes  (a  century  and  a 
half,  510-367  b.c). 

b.  Expansion  by  this  united  Rome  (two  centuries) :  over\ 
Italy  (367-266  b.c);  over  the  Mediterranean  coasts  (264-* 
146  B.C.). 

c.  A  century  of  new  class  struggles  —  division  between  rich 
and  poor,  and  between  Italy  and  the  Provinces,  resulting  in 
despotism  (146-49. b.c). 

Tlie  period  of  growth  comes  between  the  fusion  of  pcUricians 
and  plebeians  and  the  fission  of  rich  and  poor.  This  period  of 
renewed  internal  strife  is  the  subject  of  this  chapter.^ 

393.  The  Roman  Republic  unprepai^a  for  World- dominion. — 

Rome  had  left  no  state  able  to  keep  the  seas  or  guard  the 
frontiers  of  civilization.  It  was  therefore  her  plain  duty  to 
police  the  Mediterranean  lands  herself.  In  her  attempts  to 
do  this,  she  was  drawn  on  from  Conquest  to  conquest,  and 
became  mistress  of  the  world  before  she  had  learned  how  to 
rule  it.     Formerly  she  had  devised  a  system  fit  for  a  free  city 

1  The  relations  of  the  periods  of  the  Roman  Republic  to  each  other  have 
been  somewhat  obscured  by  the  introduction  of  chapter  v.  and  by  the  sub- 
division of  the  era  of  expansion  into  three  other  chapters. 

2  The  student  should  note  the  vital  diiferences  between  the  class  struggle 
treated  in  this  chapter  and  the  earlier  one  between  patricians  and  plebeians. 
It  is  not  hard  to  see  which  one  bears  more  closely  -upon  questions  of  our  day. 

340 


I 


§395]  NEED   OF  A  NEW  SYSTEM.  341 

as  the  center  of  allied  Italy  (§§  336,  343) ;  but  now  she  failed 
to  create  a  new  system  fit  for  a  free  city  as  the  center  of  the 
world.  The  reaction  of  her  conquests,  too,  lowered  her  own 
moral  tone  and  contributed  to  her  decay,  economic  and  politi- 
cal, until  she  could  no  longer  fulfill  her  old  task  of  governing 
Italy,  or  even  herself.  From  the  path  of  empire  there  was 
no  retreat ;  but  to  that  empire  the  city-commonwealth  was  to 
sacrifice  its  own  liberty. 

394.  The  Four  Great  Evils.  —  There  followed  a  miserable 
century  of  plunder  in  the  provinces  and  of  civil  strife  at  home. 
The  internal  conflict  was  threefold:  in  Rome  itself,  between 
rich  and  poor ;  in  Italy,  between  Rome  and  the  "  Allies  " ;  in 
the  empire,  between  Italy  and  the  Provinces.  At  the  same 
time,  the  police  duty  itself  was  neglected :  the  seas  swarmed 
with  pirate  fleets,  and  new  barbarian  thunderclouds  gathered 
unwatched  on  all  the  frontiers. 

395.  The  Need  of  a  New  System  (Preparation  for  the  Empire). 

—  The  irresponsible  senatorial  oligarchy  proved  incompetent 
and  indisposed  to  grap^fc^with  these  problems,  and  its  jealousy 
crushed  individual  statesmen  who  tried  to  heal  the  diseases 
of  the  state  in  constitutional  ways.  A  century  later,  the 
situation  had  become  unbearable  within,  and  the  Roman  world 
seemed  on  the  verge  of  ruin  from_barbarian  assault  from  with- 
out. But,  after  alt,  the  vigor  of  the  Italian  race  was  unex- 
hausted ;  and  the  break-down  of  senatorial  rule,  and  the  danger 
of  a  worse  mob  ryle^  bred  the  only  resource,  —  the  military 
rule  of  Marius,  Sulla,  Pompey,  and  Caesar. 

These  leaders  began  a  new  system.  We  call  it  the  Empire. 
Its  essence  was  to  be  the  concentration  of  power  and  responsi- 
bility. It  was  to  remedy  much.  For  centuries  it  guarded 
civilization  against  attacks  from  without,  while  it  secured 
order,  good  government,  and  prosperity  within.  Political  life 
for  the  people  it  could  not  restore.  To  combine  liberty 
with  imperial  extent  was  to  be  left  to  a  later  race  on  a  new 
stage. 


342  NEW  CIVIL  STRIFE,  146-49  B.C.  [§  396 

The  interest  in  the  "third  period"  of  the  Eepublic,  upon 
which  we  now  enter,  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  was  a  preparation 
for  this  coming  Empire. 

II.   THE  EVILS  IN  DETAIL. 
A.   In  Rome. 

396.  Economic  and  Moral  Decline  due  to  the  Great  Wars. — 
A  social  revolution  preceded  the  political  revolution.  A 
tendency  to  economic  and  moral  decline  is  plain  before  the 
close  of  the  SecondPunic  War.  Even  a  glorious  war  tends 
to  demoralize  an  industrial  society  —  to  corrupt  morals  and 
to  create  extremes  of  wealth  and  poverty.  Extreme  poverty 
brings  with  it  further  lowering  of  the  moral  tone ;  quick-won 
and  illegitimate  wealth  does  so,  too.  And  then  moral  decay 
shows  in  the  state  in  political  disease.  The  Second  Punic  War 
teaches  this  lesson  to  the  full. 

Italy  had  lost  a  million  lives  —  the  flower  of  the  citizen 
body.  The  Roman  burgesses  alone  fell  off  from  two  hundred 
and  ninety-eight  thousand  to  two  hundred  and  fourteen  thou- 
sand. Over  much  of  the  peninsula  the  homesteads  of  the  rest 
had  been  devastated  beyond  recovery ;  while  years  of  incessant 
camp  life,  with  plunder  for  pay,  had  ruined  the  simple  tastes 
of  the  old  yeoman  soldier.  In  the  ruin  of  the  small  farmer, 
Hannibal  had  dealt  his  enemy  a  deadlier  blow  than  he  ever 
knew. 

Legitimate  trade,  too,  had  stagnated,  and  illegitimate  profits 
were  eagerly  sought.  The  merchants  who  had  risked  their 
wealth  so  enthusiastically  to  supply  their  country  in  her  dire 
need  after  Cannae,  began  to  indemnify  themselves,  as  soon 
as  that  peril  was  over,  by  fraudulent  war  contracts  and  by 
scuttling  their  over-insured  ships,  supposed  to  be  loaded  with 
army  supplies  for  Spain  or  Africa.  Later  conquests  gave  this 
class  even  greater  opportunities.  Alongside  the  impoverished 
farmer  and  the  starving  rabble,  there  sprang  up  a  coarse  plu- 
tocracy, based  on  rapacious  plunder  of  the  enemy's  country, 


§  397]  DECAY  OF  THE  YEOMANRY.  343 

fraudulent  contracts  with  the  government  at  home,  reckless 
speculation,  and  unjust  appropriation  of  the  public  lands. 
With  this  new  order  of  wealthy  Equites  and  with  the  senato- 
rial class,  sumptuous  luxury  replaced  the  old  Eoman  simplicity. 
As  the  satirist  Juvenal  wi'ote  later :  — 

"Luxury,  has  fallen  upon  us  —  more  terrible  than  the  sword.  The 
conquered  East  has  avenged  herself  by  the  gift  of  her  vices." 

The  economic  phenomena,  good  and  bad,  that  had  occurred 
in  the  G-reek  world  (§§  244  and  254)  after  the  conquests  of 
Alexander,  were  now  repeated  on  a  larger  scale  in  Italy  —  with 
this  significant  difference,  that  the  coarser  Roman  resorted  too 
often  to  tawdry  display  and  to  gluttony  or  other  brutal  excesses, 
from  which  the  more  refined  and  temperate  Greek  turned  with 
disgust. 

397.  The  Continued  Decline  of  the  Yeomanry  after  the  Wars 
through  the  working  of  **  Economic  Laws.**  ^ 

"Clearly  a  difficult  point  for  government,  that  of  dealing  vs^ith  these 
masses  ;  if,  indeed,  it  be  not  rather  the  sole  point  and  problem  of  govern- 
ment, and  all  other  points  mere  accidental  crotchets,  superficialities,  and 
beatings  of  the  wind."  —  Carlyle,  French  Revolution. 

In  the  ancient  world,  the  land  question  was  what  the  wage 
question  is  to  our  more  complex  industrial  society.  It  had 
long  been  important  at  Rome.     Now  it  became  vital. 

The  rift  between  rich  and  poor,  which  war  and  unjust 
privilege  had  begun,  went  on  widening.  Especially  were  the 
surviving  yeomanry  squeezed  off  the  land.  This  came  about 
through  certain  economic  tendencies  that  should  have  been 
checked.  Sicily  and  other  grain  provinces  supplied  Italian 
cities  with  cheap  corn  that  undersold  the  Italian  farmer. 
The  large  landlord  turned  to  more  profitable  cattle-grazing, 
or  to  wine  and  oil  culture.  The  small  farmer  had  no  such 
escape,  for  all  these  forms  of  industry  called  for  large  tracts 
and  slave  labor.     For  grazing,  or  often  simply  for  pleasure 

1  Mommsen,  III.  304-308,  311-314;  Ihne,  IV.  ch.  xii. 


344  NEW  CIVIL  STRIFE,    146-49  B.C.  [§398 

resorts,  the  new  capitalists  wanted  huge  domains,  and  were 
ready  to  buy  out  the  poor  yeomen,  whose  lessened  profits 
made  them  willing  to  sell.  The  wars  in  the  East  furnished  an 
abundance  of  cheap  slaves.  Thus  we  have  a  group  of  factors, 
all  tending  to  the  same  end:  (a)  the  cheap  grain  from  the 
provinces ;  (b)  the  introduction  of  a  new  industry  better  suited 
to  large  holdings  and  to  slave  labor ;  (c)  the  growth  of  large 
fortunes  eager  for  landed  investment;  (jT)  the  growth  of  a 
cheap  slave  supply.  And  so  great  ranches,  with  a  few  slave 
herdsmen  and  their  flocks,  took  the  place  of  many  cottages 
on  small,  well-tilled  farms,  each  once  with  its  independent 
family  of  Italian  citizens.  The  small  farmers,  formerly  the 
backbone  of  Italian  society  in  peace  and  war  alike,  drifted 
from  the  soil  to  form  a  degenerate  town  rabble  at  the  capital. 
There  they  became  the  masters  and  the  means  of  designing 
politicians,  who  amused  them  with  festivals  and  gladiatorial 
shows,  and  who  were  finally  to  support  them,  at  state  expense, 
with  free  graiu.^  The  lines  of  an  English  poet,  two  thousand 
years  later,  regarding  similar  phenomena  in  his  own  country, 
apply  to  this  Italy  :  — 


/*'  HI  fares  the  land,  to  hastening  ills  a  prey, 
/      Where  wealth  accumulates,  and  men  decay  1 1' 

398.  Violefice^of  the  Rich  as  a  Cause  of  the  Decay  of  the  Yeo- 
manry.^—  To  war  and  natural  economic  causes  were  added 
force  and  fraud  on  a  large  scale,  especially  in  the  more 
secluded  regions,  where,  despite  all  discouragements,  the  small 
farmers  clung  stubbornly  to  their  ancestral  fields.  The 
Latin  poet  Horace  (Odes,  ii.  23-28)  describes  the  violence  and 
trickery  of  the  great  landlord  toward  his  helpless  victim  in 
pathetic  words  that  resemble  those  of  Sir  Thomas  More  in 
England  in  the  sixteenth  century  regarding  like  conditions 
there. 

1  In  this  case,  decline  in  morals  was  essentially  a  result,  not  a  cause,  of  the 
economic  change. 

2  Mommsen,  III.  318. 


§399]  GROWTH  OF  A  CITY  MOB.  345 

399.  Political  Results  :  the  Decline  of  the  Senate  and  the  Growth 
of  the  Mob.  —  The  economic  change  produced  moral  deteriora- 
tion, and  this  in  turn  produced  political  decay.  The  old  con- 
stitution, unchanged  in  theory,  became  a  plaything  tossed  back 
and  forth  between  an  incapable,  effeminate,  luxurious  nobility 
and  a  mongrel,  idle,  hungry  town  mob  reinforced  by  freed 
slaves  from  all  the  provinces.  Old  ideas  of  loyalty,  obedience, 
regard  for  law,  self-restraint,  grew  rarer.  Young  nobles  flat- 
tered and  caressed  the  populace  for  votes.^  Bribery  became 
undisguised  and  rampant.  Statesmen  came  to  disregard  all 
checks  of  the  constitution  in  order  to  carry  a  point. 

The  senatorial  nobility  let  all  things  take  their  course,  care- 
ful only  for  their  own  place  and  fortune,  grasping  at  the  profits, 
but  shirking  the  responsibilities,  of  empire.  They  closed 
their  own  ranks  by  a  law  a^ccording  to  which  a  candidate  could 
acquire  the  great  offices  only  in  a  certain  order,  beginning 
as  quaestor, — while  the  lowest  curule  office,  the  aedileship, 
became  so  burdened  with  costly  spectacles  and  games  that 
only  the  wealthiest  or  most  reckless  could  start  upon  a  politi- 
cal career.^  Of  course,  among  the  cowardly  and  dissolute 
aristocrats  there  were  noble  exceptions;  but  Mommsen,  who  so 
generously  applauded  the  senate  of  200  B.C.  (§  347),  says  of  its 
successor  eighty  years  later ;  — 

"It  sat  on  the  vacated  throne  with  an  evil  conscience  and  divided 
hopes,  indignant  at  the  institutions  of  the  state  which  it  ruled,  and  yet 
incapable  of  even  systematically  assailing  them,  vacillating  in  all  its  con- 
duct except  where  its  own  material  advantage  prompted  a  decision,  a 
picture  of  faithlessness  toward  its  own  as  well  as  the  opposite  party,  of 
inward  inconsistency,  of  the  most  pitiful  impotence,  of  the  meanest 
selfishness,  — an  unsurpassed  ideal  of  misrule." 

1  On  the  rabble,  of.  Mommsen,  III.  35-40  and  329-332.  Few  were  those  who 
could  defy  the  hissings  as  did  the  younger  Africanus:  "Silence,  ye  step- 
children of  Italy.  Think  ye  I  fear  those  whom  I  myself  brought  in  chains  to 
Rome  ?  " 

2Ihne,  11.  481;  Mommsen,  III.  40-42  and  124-126.  Special  report:  new 
games  and  festivals  in  this  period.  On  the  effect  of  the  lack  of  salary  for 
public  service,  of.  §§  197  and  264. 


346  NEW  CIVIL   STRIFE,  146-49  B.C.  [§  400 


B.   In  Italy.^ 

400.  Sharpened  Distinctions  and  Growing  Roman  Insolence.  — 

Admission  to  Koman  citizenship  from  without  almost  ceased. 
New  Latin  colonies  were  no  longer  founded.  Laws  restricted 
the  old  freedom  of  Latin  migration,  and  confounded  the 
Latins  with  the  other  allies.  The  grade  of  passive  citizens, 
too,  disappeared,  partly  by  promotion,  partly  by  degradation. 

The  allies  were  given  a  smaller  share  of  the  war  plunder, 
and  were  called  upon  to  double  their  proportion  of  soldiers 
for  the  legions.  Worse  than  all  this,  was  the  occasional  inso- 
lence or  brutality  of  a  Roman  official.  In  one  town  the  city 
consul  was  stripped  and  scourged  because  the  wife  of  a  Eoman 
magistrate  felt  aggrieved  that  the  public  baths  were  not  vacated 
quickly  enough  when  she  desired  to  use  them;  in  another,  a 
young  Roman  idler,  looking  on  languidly  from  his  litter,  caused 
a  free  herdsman  to  be  whipped  to  death  for  a  light  jest  at  his 
expense.^ 

C   In  the  Provinces.^ 

401.  Irregular  Growth  of  the  System  and  its  Deterioration — 

The  growth  of  provincial  government  had  been  a  matter  of 
patchwork  and  makeshifts,  without  any  comprehensive  views 
of  Roman  interests  or  any  earnest  desire  to  govern  for  the 
good  of  the  provincials.  Both  these  things  had  to  wait  for 
the  Caesars.  Meantime  the  Republic  began  its  world-rule  by 
adopting,  with  some  modifications,  the  systems  of  taxation  it 
found  in  force  in  its  different  conquests.  At  first  the  Roman 
administration  was  more  honest,  capable,  and  just,  than  the 

1  Mommsen,  III.  2.3-29. 

2  These  facts  are  stated  by  the  younger  Gracchus  (§  413)  in  his  speeches  for 
reform  in  the  year  123. 

8  Mommsen,  III.  29-35;  Ihne,  IV.  197-208;  Pelham,  174-186,  327-329;  Al- 
croft  and  Masom,  281-286  (excellent) ;  Arnold,  Eoman  Provincial  Adminis- 
tration, 40-88.  On  the  governor's  tyranny,  Cicero's  Oration  against  Verres, 
or  the  chapter  on  *♦  A  Roman  Magistrate  "  in  Church's  Roman  Life  in  the 
Bays  of  Cicero. 


§403]  MISGOVERNMENT  IN  THE   PROVINCES.  347 

Carthaginian  or  the  Greek.  But  irresponsible  power  bred  reck- 
lessness and  corruption.  Deterioration  soon  set  in ;  and  before 
100  B.C.  it  was  dubious  whether  the  West  had  gained  by  the 
fall  of  Carthage.  It  took  the  Empire  with  its  better  aims  and 
methods  to  dispel  the  doubt. 

402.  Marks  of  a  Province.  —  Even  at  the  worst,  existing 
institutions  were  everywhere  respected,  with  true  Eoman  tol- 
erance. There  were  much  the  same  distinctions  between  com- 
munities as  in  Italy,  with  a  like  jealous  isolation  of  each  from 
each;  but  the  cities  were  left  their  self-control  for  purely 
local  concerns,  and  some  nominally  were  independent  allies, 
with  special  exemption  from  taxes.  In  general,  however,  the 
distinctive  marks  of  a  province,  as  opposed  to  Italian  commu- 
nities, were  (a)  payment  of  tribute,  (b)  disarmament,  and  (c) 
the  absolute  rule  of  a  resident  Roman  governor. 

403.  The  Governor.  —  The  actual  working  of  the  system 
rested  with  the  governor,  and  everything  tended  to  make  him 
an  extortionate  tyrant.  He  was  appointed  by  the  senate  (after 
a  while,  from  those  who  had  just  held  consulships  or  praetor- 
ships),  with  the  title  of  pro-consul  or  pro-praetor ;  that  is,  with 
the  imperium  of  a  consul  or  praetor.  In  fact,  he  had  power 
even  in  peace  as  great  as  the  consul  exercised  at  the  head  of 
his  army.  He  had  no  colleague ;  there  was  no  appeal  from 
his  decrees ;  there  was  no  tribune  to  veto  his  act ;  he  had  sol- 
diery to  enforce  his  commands;  his  whole  official  staff  went 
out  with  him,  and  were  strictly  subordinate  to  him.  The  per- 
sons of  the  provincials  were  at  his  mercy:  Flamininus  in  Cisal- 
pine Gaul  caused  a  noble  Gaul,  a  fugitive  in  his  camp,  to  be 
beheaded,  merely  to  gratify  with  the  sight  a  worthless  favorite 
who  had  missed  the  gladiatorial  games  at  Eome  by  following 
him  to  the  province.  There  was  even  less  check  upon  the 
governor's  financial  oppression :  all  offices  were  unpaid ;  the 
way  to  them  was  through  vast  expense;  and  the  plundering  of 
a  province  came  to  be  looked  upon  as  the  natural  means  of 
recouping  one's  self  for  previous  outlay  and  for  a  temporary 


348  NEW  CIVIL  STRIFE,  146-49  B.C.  [§  404 

exile  from  Rome.  In  short,  the  senatorial  nobility  passed 
around  the  provinces  among  themselves  as  so  much  spoil. 

A  governor  might  be  impeached,  it  is  true,  after  his  term 
had  expired ;  but  it  could  be  done  only  at  Rome.  Poor  pro- 
vincials, of  course,  had  to  endure  any  abuse  without  even  seek- 
ing redress ;  and  in  any  case  it  was  rarely  possible  to  secure 
conviction  of  the  grossest  offenders.  The  only  court  for  such 
trials  was  made  up  of  senators  (later,  of  senators  and  equites), 
who  too  often  were  themselves  interested  in  similar  exploita- 
tions ;  and,  with  the  best  of  them,  class  spirit  stood  in  the  way 
of  convicting  an  offending  noble. 

When  other  resources  failed  to  secure  acquittal,  the  culprit 
could  fall  back  on  bribery.  When  Verres  was  given  the  prov- 
ince of  Sicily  for  three  years,  Cicero  tells  us,  he  cynically 
declared  it  quite  enough:  "In  the  first  year  he  could  secure 
enough  plunder  for  himself ;  in  the  second  for  his  friends ;  in 
the  third  for  his  judges." 

404.   The  **  Estates  of  the  Roman  People." — It  was  not  the 

senatorial  class  alone,  however,  who  enriched  themselves  from 
the  provinces.  All  Rome,  and  indeed  all  Italy,  drew  profit 
from  them.  The  state  secured  its  immense  revenues  now 
mainly  from  taxation  of  the  provincials,  and  from  its  domains 
and  mines  in  the  provinces.  The  equites,  organized  in  com- 
panies (publicans)  or  as  private  speculators,  with  their  agents, 
swarmed  by  tens  of  thousands  in  every  rich  province.  They 
conducted  all  public  works,  with  corrupt  contracts;  "farmed" 
the  taxes  (that  is,  paid  the  Roman  treasury  a  fixed  amount,  and 
then  squeezed  from  the  province  as  much  more  as  they  could) ; 
loaned  money  at  infamous  interest;  and,  dividing  their  ill- 
gotten  plunder  with  the  governor,  exploited  the  unhappy  pro- 
vincials mercilessly.^  The  populace  looked  to  the  provinces 
for  cheap  grain,  and  for  wild-beast  shows  and  other  spectacles. 
"  Italy  was  to  rule  and  feast ;  the  provinces  were  to  obey  and 

1  Read  Arnold,  Provincial  Administration^  82,  83. 


§  406]  SLAVERY.  349 

pay."  And  withal  it  was  nobody's  business  in  particular  to 
see  that  these  "  farms  of  the  Eoman  people  "  were  not  rapidly 
and  wastefully  exhausted. 

D,  Slavery.' 

405.  Extent  and  Brutal  Character.  —  Eoman  slavery  in  this 
period  was  unparalleled  in  its  immensity  and  degradation. 
Mommsen  is  probably  right  in  saying  that  in  comparison  with 
its  abyss  of  suffering  all  negro  slavery  is  but  as  a  drop.  To 
keep  up  the  supply,  man  hunts  were  regularly  organized  on 
the  frontiers,  and  even  some  of  the  provinces  were  desolated 
by  kidnappers.  At  one  market  (Delos)  ten  thousand  slaves 
were  s?old  in  a  day.  The  slaves  came  largely  f^om  the  cultured 
East.  They  made  schoolmasters,  secretaries,  stewards;  but 
they  made  also  the  savage  herdsmen  and  the  hordes  of  branded 
and  shackled  laborers  clothed  in  rags  and  sleeping  in  under- 
ground dungeons.  The  maxim  of  even  the  model  Eoman, 
Cato,  was  to  work  them  like  so  many  cattle,  selling  off  the  old 
and  infirm;  "The  slave,"  said  he,  "should  be  always  either  work- 
ing or  sleeping."  With  the  worse  class  of  masters  the  brutal 
Eoman  nature  vented  itself  in  inhuman  cruelties.  The  result 
was  expressed  in  the  saying  —  "So  many  slaves,  so  many 
enemies."  The  truth  of  this  maxim  was  to  find  too  much 
proof. 

406.  Slave  Wars.  —  In  the  year  135  came  the  first  of  a  long 
series  of  slave  revolts.  Seventy  thousand  insurgent  slaves 
were  masters  of  Sicily  for  four  years,  defeating  army  after 
army  that  Eome  sent  against  them,  and  desolating  the  island 
with  indescribable  horrors.  Thirty  years  later,  when  Eome 
was  trembling  before  the  Teutonic  invasion  (§  421),  occurred  a 
Second  Sicilian  Slave  War  —  more  formidable  even  than  the 
first,^  lasting  five  years.  Other  slave  risings  took  place  at  the 
same  time.     Another  thirty  years;  and  there  came  the  terrible 

1  Mommsen,  III.  68-73,  305-311jAr  Beesly,  The  Gracchi,  10-14. 

2  Mommsen,  III.  382-387,  andJi-eeman's  Story  of  Sicily. 


350  NEW  CIVIL  STRIFE,  146-49  B.C.  [§  407 

slave  revolt  in  Italy  itself,  headed  by  the  gallant  Spartacus,  a 
Thracian  captive  and  gladiator,  who  kept  the  field  three  years 
and  even  menaced  Eome. 

For  Further  Reading.  —  For  an  eaiiy  authority,  Appian,  II.  (White's 
translation).  Very  full  surveys  in  Ihne,  IV.  and  Mommsen,  bk.  iii.  chs. 
xi.-xiii.  and  bk.  iv.  first  part  of  ch.  ii.  A  good  brief  account  in  Beesly's 
The  Gracchi,  opening  pages,  or  in  Merivale's  Fall  of  Boman  Bepublic, 
ch.  i.  The  more  important  points  (especially  the  Provinces)  are  given 
full  references  in  the  footnotes.  Long's  Decline  of  the  Boman  Bepublic 
(5  vols.)  may  be  consulted  by  advanced  students. 

Special  Reports.  —  The  Second  Sicilian  Slave  War,  and  the  revolt  of 
Spartacus. 


in.    THE    GRACCHI  — ATTEMPTS  AT  PEACEFUL   REFORM. 
A.   Tiberius  Gracchus. 

407.  Previous  Suggestions  for  Reform.  —  To  remedy  a  system 
so  fundamentally  rotten  was  a  task  that  called  for  a  union  of 
enthusiastic  devotion  with  a  lofty,  statesmanlike  intelligence. 
Cato  the  Censor  —  austere,  upright,  energetic,  but  coarse  and 
narrow  —  spent  his  force  foolishly  in  fighting  the  new  Hellenic 
culture  and  the  rising  standard  of  comfort.  He  did  not  touch 
the  real  evils  or  suggest  any  remedy  for  their  causes.  Indeed, 
he  himself,  instead  of  being  a  yeoman  farmer  like  his  model 
Manius  (§  349),  was  the  owner  of  great  plantations  worked  by 
slave  labor.^ 

There  seemed  for  a  time  one  other  chance.  Just  after  146 
B.C.,  Scipio  Africanus  the  Younger  was  the  foremost  man  at 
Rome.  He  was  liberal,  virtuous,  cultivated.  Many  looked 
hopefully  to  him  for  reform.  He  saw  the  evils  clearly,  but  he 
shrank  from  a  struggle  with  his  order;  and  he  betrayed  his 
despair  when  he  laid  down  his  censorship  by  praying  the  gods, 

1  A  charming  picture  of  the  best  side  of  Cato  is  given  in  Mommsen,  TIL 
117  ff.    See  Plutarch's  Life,  and  also  Ihne,  IV.  324  ft. 


§409]  TIBERIUS   GRACCHUS.  351 

not,  in  the  usual  formula,  to  enlarge  the  glory  of  Rome,  but  to 
preserve  the  State.^ 

408.  Tiberius  Gracchus.^  —  Thus  the  great  attempt  fell  to  the 
Gracchi  brothers,  throbbing  with  the  fire  of  genius  and  the 
noble  passion  of  youth.  Tiberius  Gracchus  was  still  under 
thirty  at  his  death.  He  was  one  of  the  brilliant  circle  of 
young  Romans  about  Scipio.  His  father  had  been  a  magnifi- 
cent aristocrat.  His  mother,  Cornelia,  a  daughter  of  the  older 
Africanus,  is  as  famous  for  her  fine  culture  and  noble  nature 
as  for  being  the  "  Mother  of  the  Gracchi."  Tiberius  himself 
was  already  distinguished  in  war  and  marked  by  his  probity 
and  energy.  This  was  the  man  who  struck  at  the  root  of  the 
economic,  moral,  and  political  decay  of  Italy,  by  trying  to  save 
and  rebuild  the  yeoman  class. 

409.  Tiberius*  Agrarian  Proposals.  —  Tiberius  obtained  the 
tribuneship  for  133  e.g.,  and  at  once  brought  forward  his  agra- 
rian law,  which  was  the  land  clause  of  the  old  Licinian  Roga- 
tions (§  326)  in  a  gentler  but  more  effective  form.  That  ancient 
enactment  had  become  obsolete,  and  the  public  land  had  again 
fallen  by  mere  corrupt  favoritism  into  the  hands  of  the  wealthy, 
who  paid  no  return  for  its  use.  The  proposal  of  Gracchus  was 
threefold. 

a.  Each  holder  of  state  land  was  to  surrender  all  that  he 
occupied  in  excess  of  five  hundred  jugera,  receiving  in  return 
absolute  title  to  the  five  hundred  left  him  (provided  also  that 
he  might  keep  two  hundred  and  fifty  jugera  more  for  a  son). 
This  was  mild  and  wise,  and  neither  confiscation  nor  demagog- 
ism. 

b.  The  land  so  reclaimed  was  to  be  given  in  small  holdings 
(thirty  jugera)  to  poor  applicants,  so  as  to  re-create  a  peasantry. 
And  to  make  the  reform  lasting,  these  holders  were  to  possess 

1  On  certain  minor  reforms  in  this  period,  especially  the  introduction  of 
the  ballot  in  thecomitia  tributa,  see  Mommsen,  III.  299  £f. 

2  Beesly,  23-37;  Ihne,  bk.  vii.  ch.  ii. ;  Mommsen,  III.  320-333,  for  a  less  cor- 
dial view;  Plutarch's  L^e. 


352  NEW   CIVIL  STRIFE,  146-49  B.C.  [§  410 

their  land  in  perpetual  lease  (on  payment  of  a  small  rent  to  the 
state)  without  right  to  sell, 

c.  To  provide  for  changes,  and  to  keep  the  law  from  becom- 
ing obsolete,  there  was  to  be  a  permanent  hoard  of  three  com- 
missioners to  superintend  the  reclaiming  and  distributing  of 
land. 

410.  The  Struggle.  —  Gracchus  urged  his  law  with  fiery 
eloquence. 

"  The  wild  beasts  of  Italy  have  their  dens,  but  the  brave  men  who  spill 
their  blood  for  her  are  without  homes  or  settled  habitations.  Their  gen- 
erals do  but  mock  them  when  they  exhort  their  men  to  fight  for  their  sep- 
ulchers  and  the  gods  of  their  hearths ;  for  among  such  numbers  there  is 
perhaps  not  one  who  has  an  ancestral  altar.  The  private  soldiers  fight 
and  die  to  advance  the  luxury  of  the  great,  and  they  are  called  masters 
of  the  world  without  having  a  sod  to  call  their  own." 

The  senate  of  course  opposed  the  proposal,  but  Tiberius 
brought  it  directly  before  the  tribes,  as  he  had  the  right  to  do. 
The  senate  fell  back  upon  a  favorite  device.  It  put  up  one  of 
Tiberius'  colleagues,  a  personal  friend,  Octavius,  to  forbid  a 
vote.  After  many  pleadings  and  long  delay,  Tiberius  resorted 
to  revolutionary  measures.  In  spite  of  his  colleague's  veto,  he 
put  to  the  tribes  the  question  whether  he  or  Octavius  should 
be  deposed;  and  when  the  vote  was  given  unanimously  against 
Octavius,  Tiberius  had  him  dragged  forth  from  his  seat.^  Then 
the  great  law  was  passed. 

411.  Further  Conflict;  Gracchus  Murdered.  —  At  this  time  the 
last  king  of  Pergamum,  by  will,  left  his  treasure  to  the  Eoman 
people.  Gracchus  proposed  to  divide  the  money  among  the 
new  peasantry  to  stock  their  farms.  He  also  desired  to  extend 
Roman  citizenship  to  all  Italy.  The  senate  accused  him  of 
trying  to  make  himself  king  (§  319),  and  threatened  to  impeach 
him  at  the  expiration  of  his  term.  To  complete  his  work,  and 
possibly  to  save  himself,  Gracchus  asked  for  reelection.     The 

1  On  the  morality  of  this  act,  of.  Beesly's  The  Oracchi,  32, 33,  and  Mommsen, 
UI.  323  and  330. 


§412]  TIBERIUS   GRACCHUS.  353 

first  two  tribes  voted  for  him,  and  then  the  senate,  having  failed 
in  other  methods,  declared  his  candidacy  illegal.^  The  election 
was  adjourned  to  the  next  day,  and  the  end  was  not  difficult  to 
foresee.  Tiberius  put  on  mourning  and  commended  his  infant 
son  to  the  protection  of  the  people.  It  was  harvest  time, 
and  the  farmers  were  absent  from  the  Assembly,  which  was 
left  largely  to  the  worthless  city  rabble.  On  the  following 
day  the  election  was  again  forbidden.  A  riot  broke  out,  and 
the  more  violent  of  the  senators  and  their  friends,  charging  the 
undecided  mob,  put  it  to  flight  and  murdered  Gracchus  —  a 
patriot-martyr  worthy  o'f  the  company  of  the  Cassius,  Manlius, 
and  Maelius  of  earlier  days.  Some  three  hundred  of  his  ad- 
herents also  were  killed  and  thrown  into  the  Tiber.  Kome, 
in  all  her  centuries  of  stern,  sober,  patient,  constitutional 
strife,  had  never  witnessed  such  a  day  before. 

412.  The  Work  of  Gracchus  lived.  —  The  whole  aristocratic 
party  felt  constrained  to  approve  the  outrage,  rather  than 
abandon  their  partisans  to  popular  vengeance.  Accordingly 
the  senate  declared  the  murder  an  act  of  patriotism  and 
followed  up  the  reformer's  partisans  with  mock  trials  and 
persecutions  (fastening  one  of  them,  says  Plutarch,  in  a  chest 
with  vipers),  but  it  did  not  dare  interfere  with  the  great  law 
that  had  been  carried.  A  consul  for  132  B.C.  inscribed  on  a 
monument,  that  he  was  the  first  who  had  installed  farmers  in 
place  of  shepherds  on  the  public  domains.  The  land  commis- 
sion (composed  of  the  friends  of  Tiberius)  did  its  work  zeal- 
ously, and  in  125  B.C.  the  burgess  list  of  Rome  had  increased 
by  eighty  thousand  farmers.  It  seems  probable  that  the 
movement,  in  some  less  degree,  was  carried  on  also  over  the 
rest  of  Italy,  and  certainly  it  constituted  a  vast  and  healthful 
reform.^  But  of  course  a  time  came  when  to  reclaim  further 
land  involved  bitter  disputes  as  to  title,  and  the  senate  took 
advantage  of  the  fact  to  abolish  the  commission.^ 

1  Beesly,  35.  8  Mommsen,  m.  336-337, 

2  Mommsen,  UL  331-335,  or  Beesly,  39. 


354  NEW  CIVIL  STRIFE,  146-49  B.C.  [§  413 

B.   Caius  Gracchus.' 

413.  Character  and  Aims.  —  Immediately  after  this  reaction, 
and  just  nine  years  after  his  brother's  death,  Caius  Gracchus 
took  up  the  work.  He  had  been  a  youth  when  Tiberius  was 
assassinated ;  now  he  was  Rome's  greatest  orator,  —  a  daunt- 
less, resolute,  clear-sighted  man,  long  brooding  on  personal 
revenge  and  on  patriotic  reform.  Tiberius,  he  declared,  ap- 
peared to  him  in  a  dream  to  call  him  to  his  task  :  '•  Why  do 
you  hesitate  ?  You  cannot  escape  your  doom  and  mine  —  to 
live  for  the  people  and  to  die  for  them  !  " 

Tiberius  had  striven  only  for  economic  reform.  Caius  had 
learned  the  necessity  of  buttressing  his  social  change  by  polit- 
ical reform.  Apparently  he  meant  to  overthrow  the  senate 
and  to  set  up  a  new  constitution  something  like  that  of  Athens 
under  Pericles. 

414.  Political  Measures,  to  win  Allies.  —  The  city  mob  Grac- 
chus secured  by  a  corn  law  providing  for  the  distribution  of 
cheaper  grain  to  the  poor  in  the  capital,  the  difference  to  be 
made  up  from  the  public  treasury.^  This,  perhaps,  he  regarded 
as  a  necessary  poor-law,  and  as  a  compensation  for  the  public 
lands  that  still  remained  in  the  hands  of  the  wealthy.  It  did 
not  pauperize  the  poor,  since  such  distributions  by  private 
patrons  were  already  customary  on  a  vast  scale;  it  simply 
took  this  charity  into  the  hands  of  the  state,  and  if  Gracchus' 
other  measures  could  have  been  carried  through,  the  need  for 
such  charity  would  have  been  removed ;  but  it  certainly  intro- 
duced a  vicious  and  fatal  system  of  legislative  bribery,  where 
in  the  end  the  well-meaning  patriot  was  sure  to  be  outbidden 
by  the  reckless  demagogue.  For  the  moment,  however,  it  won 
the  tribes. 

The  equites  also  Caius  won,  by  taking  the  law  courts  from  the 

1  Momrasen,  bk.  iv.  ch.  iii. ;  Beesly,  42-66 ;  Ihne,  bk.  vii.  ch.  iv. ;  Plutarch's 
Life. 

3  Of.  Mommsen,  III.  344,  and  Beesly,  4&-50,  for  differing  views. 


§416]  CAIUS   GRACCHUS.  355 

senate  to  place  them  in  their  hands  —  a  measure  that  did  some- 
thing, perhaps,  to  secure  better  government  in  the  provinces. 

415.  Economic  Reform.  —  Then,  with  these  political  alliances 
to  back  him,  he  took  up  his  brother's  work.  The  land  com- 
mission was  reestablished,  and  its  work  was  extended  to  the 
founding  of  Roman  colonies  in  distant  parts  of  Italy.  Still 
more  important,  —  Caius  introduced  the  plan  of  Koman  col- 
onization outside  Italy.  He  actually  sent  six  thousand  col- 
onists from  Rome  and  other  Italian  towns  to  the  waste  site 
of  Carthage;  and  he  planned  many  other  such  foundations. 
The  colonists  were  to  keep  full  Roman  citizenship.  This 
statesmanlike  measure,  if  it  had  been  allowed  to  work,  would 
not  only  have  provided  for  the  proletariat  of  Italy ;  it  would 
also  have  Romanized  the  provinces  more  rapidly,  and  have 
broken  down  the  invidious  distinctions  between  them  and 
Italy.  Thus  the  plan  marks  a  radical  change  in  the  Roman 
conception  of  "  colonies."  The  older  Roman  colonies  had  been 
primarily  military  in  purpose;  from  this  time  they  became 
political  and  socialistic  in  character. 

41 6.  Personal  Rule :  an  Uncrowned  *  *  Tyrant.  *  *  —  But  the  pecul- 
iar feature  of  Caius'  work  was  the  degree  to  which  he  drew 
all  the  government  into  his  own  hands.  By  various  means 
and  laws  he  took  away  authority  from  the  senate,  and  him- 
self ruled  in  its  place.  He  had  tried  to  provide  against  his 
brother's  fate  by  a  law  expressly  legalizing  reelection  to  the 
tribuneship,  and  he  served  two  terms,  virtually  as  dictator. 

"  With,  unrivaled  activity,  Caius  concentrated  the  most  varied  and 
complicated  functions  in  his  own  person.  He  himself  watched  over  the 
distribution  of  grain,  selected  jurymen,  founded  colonies  in  person  not- 
withstanding that  his  magistracy  legally  chained  him  to  the  city,  regu- 
lated highways  and  concluded  business  contracts,  led  the  discussions  of 
the  senate,  settled  the  consular  elections ;  in  short,  he  accustomed  the 
people  to  the  fact  that  one  man  was  foremost  in  all  things,  and  threw  the 
lax  and  lame  administration  of  the  senate  into  the  shade  by  the  vigor  and 
dexterity  of  his  personal  rule."  —  Mommsen,  III.  355.1 

1  See  also  ib.,  356-361,  as  to  the  constitutional  designs  of  Caius. 


356  NEW  CIVIL  STRIFE,  146-49  B.C.  [§  417 

417.  Attempt  to  extend  Citizenship  to  Italians :   Fall  of  Caius. 

Caius  also  pressed  earnestly  for  political  reform  outside  the 

city.  He  proposed,  wisely  and  nobly,  to  confer  full  citizenship 
upon  the  Latins,  and  Latin  rights  upon  all  Italy ;  but  here  the 
tribes,  jealous  of  any  extension  of  their  privileges  to  others, 
were  easily  brought  to  desert  him.  The  senate  seized  its 
chance ;  it  set  on  another  tribune,  Drusus,  to  outbid  Caius 
with  the  tribes  by  impossible  promises  never  meant  to  be 
kept ;  ^  and  when  Gracchus  stood  for  a  third  election  he  was 
defeated. 

Now  that  he  was  no  longer  protected  by  the  sanctity  of 
office,  the  whole  senatorial  party,  headed  by  a  ferocious  per- 
sonal enemy,  determined  on  his  ruin.  The  chance  soon  came. 
An  attempt  to  repeal  the  law  for  his  colony  at  Carthage 
brought  into  the  city  many  of  Caius'  adherents,  who,  remem- 
bering the  fate  of  Tiberius,  came  armed.  The  consul,  on  the 
other  hand,  called  the  organized  senatorial  party  to  arms,  and 
began  the  attack.  A  bloody  battle  followed  in  the  streets. 
Gracchus,  taking  no  part  in  the  conflict  himself,  was  slain ; 
and  three  thousand  of  his  adherents  were  afterward  strangled 
in  prison.  As  with  his  brother,  not  the  strength  of  his  foes, 
but  the  weakness  of  his  friends,  overthrew  him. 

418.  Overthrow  of  the  Work  of  the  Two  Brothers.  —  The  victo- 
rious senate  struck  hard.  It  resumed  its  sovereign  rule.  The 
proposed  colonies  were  abandoned,  and  the  great  agrarian 
reform  itself  was  undone.  The  yeomen  were  permitted  to 
sell  their  land,  and  the  commission  was  abolished.  The  old 
economic  decay  began  again,  and  soon  the  work  of  the  Gracchi 
was  but  a  memory.  Even  that  memory  the  senate  tried  to 
proscribe.  Men  were  forbidden  to  speak  of  the  brothers,  and 
Cornelia  was  not  allowed  to  wear  mourning  for  her  sons.  But 
one  lesson  had  been  taught :  the  senate  had  drawn  the  sword ; 
and  when  a  Marius  or  a  Caesar  should  attempt  again  to  take 
up  the  work  of  the  Gracchi,  he  would  appear  as  a  military 

1  Beesly,  57  ;  Mommsen,  III.  364,  365. 


§420]  MARIUS  AND   SULLA.  357 

master,  to  sweep  away  the  wretched  senate  with  the  sword,  or 
to  receive  their  cringing  submission. 

For  Further  Reading.  —  Beesly,  Tlie  Gracchi  (Epochs);  Mommsen, 
bk.  iv.  chs.  ii.  and  iii.;  Ihne,  V.;  Merivale's  Fall  of  the  BepubliCj  ch.  i.; 
Plutarch,  Lives  of  Tiberius  and  Caius  Gracchus ;  Long's  Decline^  for  spe- 
cial reference  by  advanced  students.  Detailed  references  have  been 
given  in  the  text  above. 


IV.     MARIUS  AND  SULLA,  106-78  B.C. 

419.  New  Character  of  Roman  History.  —  In  earlier  times 
Rome  had  been  greater  than  any  of  her  citizens.  But  after 
146  B.C.  the  history  of  the  republic  is  summed  up  in  a  series 
of  biographies ;  and  soon  the  only  question  is,  which  man  will 
finally  seize  the  sovereignty.  This  phase  of  Eoman  history 
really  begins  with  the  younger  Africanus  and  closes  with 
Julius  Caesar  and  Octavius ;  but  it  is  with  Marius  and  Sulla 
(halfway  between)  that  the  new  character  first  shows  without 
disguise. 

420.  The  War  with  Jugurtha.  —  For  some  twenty  years,  how- 
ever, after  the  murder  of  the  Gracchi,  the  senate's  rule  was 
undisturbed.  But  a  prolonged  fourteen-year  border  war  again 
revealed  in  glaring  colors  its  venality  and  incapacity,  and 
brought  military  masters  to  the  front.  Jugurtha,  grand- 
nephew  of  Massinissa,  —  brave,  crafty,  cruel,  —  had  made 
himself  king  of  Numidia  by  the  assassination  of  a  series  of 
Roman  client  princes.  He  bribed  Roman  investigating  com- 
missioners ;  bought  a  consul  who  had  been  sent  to  attack  him ; 
and,  being  summoned  to  Rome  after  massacring  thousands  of 
Italians  and  provincials,  he  bought  his  acquittal  from  the 
senate  itself.  But  an  indignant  tribune  brought  the  matter 
directly  before  the  tribes  and  so  stirred  their  indignation  and 
wrath  that  war  at  last  was  prosecuted  in  earnest.  Its  progress 
revealed  the  utter  corruption  of  the  army,  but  it  finally  called 
out  two  great  captains  :  one  was  the  rude  soldier  Marius,  son 
of  a  Volscian  day  laborer,  who  had  risen  from  the  ranks,  and 


358  NEW   CIVIL  STRIFE,  146-49  B.C.  [§  421 

who  by  the  votes  of  the  people,  without  having  been  praetor, 
was  made  consul  to  prosecute  the  war;  the  other  was  his  aris- 
tocratic lieutenant,  /Sulla. 

421.  Marius  the  "Savior  of  Rome."  —  Suddenly  a  long-gather- 
ing storm  broke  upon  the  northern  frontier.  The  Cimbri  and 
Teutones,  two  German^  peoples,  migrating  slowly  with  fami- 
lies, flocks,  and  goods,  in  search  of  new  homes  in  the  fertile 
south,  had  reached  the  passes  of  the  Alps  in  113  B.C.  These 
barbarians  were  huge,  flaxen-haired,  with  fierce  blue  eyes,  and 
they  terrified  the  smaller  Italians  by  their  mere  size,  their 
terrific  shouts,  and  their  savage  customs. 

A  Roman  consul  who  tried  to  entrap  these  strangers  treach- 
erously was  defeated  and  slain ;  but,  leaving  Italy  on  one  side 
for  the  time,  the  Germans  crowded  into  Gaul ;  there  they  har- 
ried the  native  tribes  at  will,  and,  after  defeating  four  more 
Roman  armies  (the  last  with  slaughter  that  recalled  the  day  of 
Cannae),  they  finally  threatened  Italy  itself.  At  the  same  time 
the  Second  Slave  War  had  broken  out  in  Sicily  (§  406). 

Rome  had  found  a  general  none  too  soon.  Marius  was  just 
finishing  his  work  in  Africa.  In  his  absence  he  was  reelected 
consul  —  despite  the  law,  which  required  a  candidate  to  appear 
in  person  and  forbade  an  immediate  reelection  in  any  case  — 
and  intrusted  with  the  defense  of  Italy.  Happily,  the  Germans 
gave  him  time,  by  turning  for  two  years  more  into  Spain. 
Marius  used  the  interval  in  raising  and  drilling  troops,  and  in 
reorganizing  the  whole  military  system.  Then,  in  the  summer 
of  102  B.C.,  at  Aquae  Sextiae  (Aix),  in  southern  Gaul,  he  anni- 
hilated the  two  hundred  thousand  warriors  of  the  Teutones, 
with  all  their  women  and  children,  in  a  huge  massacre ;  and 
the  next  summer  he  destroyed  in  like  manner  the  vast  horde  of 
the  Cimbri,  who  had  penetrated  to  the  Po.  The  first  German 
nation  to  attack  Rome  had  been  given  graves  in  her  soil,  and 
Italy  was  saved  for  five  hundred-  years.^ 

1  See  Mommsen,  III.  430-431. 

2  On  this  first  German  attack,  see  Mommsen,  bk.  iv.  ch.  v.,  and  Ihne, 
V.  ch.  ix. 


§424]  MARIUS  AND  SULLA.  359 

422  Civil  Disorder,  and  the  Retirement  of  Marius. — Marius  had 
already  been  given  the  consulship  five  successive  years  in 
defiance  of  the  constitution,  —  a  prelude  to  the  coming  military 
monarchy.  Now  the  demagogues  who  led  the  popular  party  in 
Rome  tried  to  use  him  for  their  revolutionary  ends.  Marius 
had  political  ambition,  and  he  was  a  democrat  by  conviction 
and  sympathy ;  but  he  was  as  incapable  in  politics  as  he  was 
great  in  war.  Finally,  civil  strife  broke  into  street  war;  but 
Marius  was  too  moderate  for  his  allies.  He  looked  on  while 
the  radicals  were  crushed;  then  he  found  himself  discredited 
with  both  parties,  and  with  chagrin  he  retired  into  obscurity 
for  many  years. 

423.  Proposals  of  Drusus,  and  the  Social  War.  —  Meantime,  in 
91  B.C.,  the  tribune  Drusus  —  the  haughty,  upright  leader  of 
the  small  liberal  party  in  the  senate,  and  son  of  the  enemy  of 
the  Gracchi  —  took  up  the  work  of  the  ancient  enemies  of  his 
house,  proposing  to  extend  citizenship  to  the  Italians  and  to 
reform  the  senate  at  home.  Civil  war  in  Rome  was  again 
imminent ;  but  Drusus  was  assassinated,  and  then  (instead  of 
civil  war)  the  Italians  rose  in  arms.  Once  more  Rome  fought 
for  very  life,  surrounded  by  a  ring  of  foes.  The  Social  War 
(war  with  the  Socii,  or  allies)  was  as  dangerous  a  contest  as  the 
imperial  city  ever  waged.  Two  things  saved  her :  the  division 
of  her  foes  by  her  prompt  concession  of  citizenship  to  all  the 
allies  who  had  not  yet  rebelled  and  to  all  who  would  at  once 
lay  down  their  arms ;  and  the  magnificent  generalship  of  Sulla, 
the  senatorial  champion,  who  now  began  to  outshine  Marius  as 
the  savior  of  Rome.  Marius'  generalship  seems  to  have  been 
as  successful  as  ever ;  but  he  was  disliked  by  the  senate  and 
was  suspected  by  all  of  at  heart  favoring  the  demands  of  the 
Italians. 

424.  All  Italy  enters  the  Roman  State.  — The  allies  were 
crushed,  but  their  cause  won.  When  the  war  was  over,  Rome 
gradually  incorporated  all  Italy,  up  to  the  Po,  into  the  Roman 
state,  raising  the  number  of  burgesses  from  about  four  hundred 


360  NEW  CIVIL  STRIFE,  146-49  B.C.  [§  426 

thousand  to  nine  hundred  thousand.  The  cities  all  became 
municipia  (§  336),  and  their  citizens  secured  the  full  Roman 
citizenship  with  enrollment  in  the  tribes.  By  most  of  them 
the  privilege  of  voting  in  the  Assembly  at  Rome  could  rarely 
be  exercised :  but  the  movement  was  a  great  advance  in  the 
world's  history  and  the  most  notable  reform  in  the  last  century 
of  the  Republic.  The  new  consolidated  Italy  foreshadowed  a 
modern  political  nation, 

425.  Civil  War  between  Marius  and  Sulla.  —  The  rearrange- 
ments connected  with  the  extension  of  the  franchise  were  the 
occasion  for  the  brooding  civil  war  between  the  popular  and 
the  senatorial  party.  The  Italian  allies  who  joined  Rome  in 
the  war  had  all  been  placed  in  eight  tribes,  thus  receiving  only 
a  part  in?  a  fourth  of  the  voting  power  of  the  state.  Now  that 
more  were  to  be  enrolled,  the  popular  party  proposed  to  remedy 
this  injustice  and  to  distribute  the  Italians  among  all  the  thirty- 
five  tribes. 

The  tribune  Sulpicius,  a  friend  of  Drusus,  carried  the  law, 
but  not  until  Sulla  had  provoked  a  riot.  Sulla  himself  barely 
escaped  with  his  life  through  the  aid  of  his  enemy  Marius. 
Just  before  this,  the  senate  had  appointed  Sulla  to  manage  a 
war  against  Mithridates,  king  of  Pontus.  Now  Sulpicius, 
fearing  a  military  revolution,  induced  the  tribes  to  give  this 
command  to  Marius  instead.  Sulla  had  fled  to  his  army  at 
Capua;  he  declared  the  decree  of  the  tribes  illegal,  and,  though 
all  but  one  of  his  of&cers  left  him,  he  marched  upon  Rome. 
For  the  first  time  a  Roman  magistrate  used  a  regular  army  to 
reduce  the  capital.  The  democrats  under  Marius  were  scat- 
tered after  a  brief  but  furious  resistance,  and  Sulla  became  the 
first  military  master  of  the  city. 

For  the  moment  the  usurper  showed  much  moderation.  He 
repealed  the  Sulpician  laws,  executed  a  few  democratic  leaders,^ 
set  a  price  upon  the  head  of  Marius,  tried  to  biittress  the  sen- 

1  The  head  of  Sulpicius,  with  grim  irony,  was  set  up  on  the  rostrum  in  the 
Forum,  whence  his  lips  had  so  often  swayed  the  Assembly. 


§427]  MARIUS  AND   SULLA.  361 

ate   by  hasty  laws,  and  then  departed  for  the  East,  where 
Roman  dominion  was  rapidly  crumbling. 

426.  Victory  of  Cinna  and  the  Marians  :  the  Massacre.  —  With 
the  departure  of  Sulla  his  aristocratic  reaction  collapsed.  The 
democratic  party  rallied  to  undo  his  legislation.  The  aristo- 
crats, it  is  true,  surrounded  them  in  the  Forum  with  armed 
forces,  and  cut  them  down  ruthlessly  to  the  number  of  ten 
thousand,  until  the  streets  ran  with  blood.  But  their  fugitive 
leader  Cinna  was  welcomed  by  the  Italians  and  the  country 
tribes,  and  returned  to  besiege  the  city.  Marius  came  back  from 
his  exile,^  —  a  grim,  vengeful,  repulsive  old  man,  with  some 
thousands  of  freed  slaves  for  his  special  bodyguard.  Rome 
was  captured;  the  gates  were  closed;  and  for  four  days  and 
nights  the  senatorial  party  were  hunted  down  and  butchered 
indiscriminately  by  the  desperadoes  of  Marius,  despite  the 
indignant  pleadings  of  other  democratic  leaders,  like  the  gen- 
erous Sertorius.  Marius  and  Cinna  proclaimed  themselves  con- 
suls, without  even  the  form  of  an  election ;  they  then  outlawed 
Sulla,  repealed  his  legislation,  and  restored  the  Sulpician  law 
regarding  the  Italians.  In  the  midst  of  his  orgy  of  triumph 
Marius  died.  Then  Sertorius  with  regular  troops  stamped  out 
the  band  of  slave  assassins,  but  Cinna  remained  political  mas- 
ter of  Rome  for  four  years. 

427.  Sulla  in  the  East,  and  the  New  Civil  War.  — For  thirty 
years  the  indolent  senate  had  watched  dangers  growing  in  the 
East.  Three  barbarian  kings  had  appeared  there,  —  in  Pontus, 
Armenia,  and  Parthia,  —  all  encroaching  ruthlessly  upon  the 
protectorates  and  allies  of  Rome.  Finally  Mithridates,  king  of 
Pontus,  overran  all  Asia  Minor  (massacring,  at  the  lowest  esti- 
mate, eighty  thousand  Italians  there  in  one  day),  and  seized 
much  of  Macedonia  and  Greece.  This  was  the  peril  that  had 
summoned  Sulla  from  Rome.  Outlawed,  without  supplies,  with 
only  a  small  army,  he  had  restored  Roman  authority  in  a  series 
of  brilliant  campaigns,  while  Cinna  lorded  it  in  Italy,  and  now 

1  Special  report ;  stories  of  Marius  in  exile ;  see  Plutarch's  Life. 


362 


NEW  CIVIL  STRIFE,  146-49  B.C. 


'l§428 


he  returned  to  glut  his  vengeance  and  restore  his  party  (83  b.c). 
Italy  was  almost  a  unit  against  him,  but  his  veteran  army 
made  him  victor  after  a  desolating  two-years'  struggle.  Toward 
the  close  the  Samnites  rose,  for  the  last  time,  under  another 
Pontius,  and  marched  straight  upon  helpless  Eome,  "to  burn 
the  den  of  the  wolves  that  have  so  long  harried  Italy,"  and 
the  city  was  barely  saved  by  Sulla's  forced  march  and  desper- 
ate victory  at  the  Colline  Gate. 

428.  SuUa  stamps  out  the  Democrats — Sulla  was  virtually 
king;  indeed,  at  his  suggestion,  the  senate  declared  him  per- 
manent dictator?     His  first  work  was  to  crush  the  democratic 

party  by  system- 
atic massacre. 
Lists  of  names 
were  posted  pub- 
licly day  by  day, 
and  any  desperado 
was  invited  to  slay 
the  proscribed  men 
at  $2000  a  head. 
Sulla's  friends 
were  given  free 
permission  to  include  private  enemies.  The  wealth  of  the 
proscribed  was  confiscated,  and  many  a  man's  only  offense  was 
the  possession  of  a  desired  villa.  When  entreated  repeatedly 
even  by  the  servile  senate  to  let  it  be  known  when  he  would 
be  through  with  such  slaughter,  Sulla  characteristically  replied 
that  he  did  not  recall  any  more  enemies  just  then,  but  that 
those  whom  he  had  forgotten  would  have  to  be  included  in 
some  future  proscription.  Four  thousand  seven  hundred  Ko- 
mans  of  wealth  and  position  perished,  and  even  worse  massa- 
cres followed  over  Italy.    At  Praeneste  alone  twelve  thousand 


0^ 


»im^ 


A  Coin  of  Sulla,  struck  in  Athens, 
her  Owl. 


Athene  and 


1  The  old  constitutional  office  of  dictator  had  become  obsolete ;  the  new 
permanent  dictatorship  of  Sulla,  and  later  of  Caesar,  is  merely  a  name  for  a 
new  monarchy. 


§430]  MARIUS   AND   SULLA.  363 

men  were  put  to  death  in  one  day.  Sulla  thought  he  had 
stamped  out  the  embers  of  the  Marian  party.  Only  Sertorius, 
the  noblest  Eoman  of  the  age,  held  Spain  for  the  democrats, 
and  the  youth  Julius  Caesar,  a  nephew  of  Marius'  wife  and  the 
husband  of  Cinn3,'s  daughter,  was  in  hiding  in  the  mountains. 

429.  Restoration  of  Senatorial  Rule —  Sulla  next  set  about 
reestablishing  the  oligarchic  state.  He  enlarged  the  numbers 
of  the  senate  to  about  six  hundred,  and  by  law  made  all 
officers  dependent  upon  it.  The  tribuneship  (whence  had 
come  all  the  popular  movements)  was  restricted:  no  tribune 
could  bring  any  proposal  before  the  tribes,  or  even  address 
them,  without  the  senate's  permission;  and  the  office  was 
made  undesirable  by  the  provision  that  a  man  who  had 
held  it  could  never  afterward  hold  another  political  office. 
The  assignment  of  the  Italians  to  the  tribes  was  contemptu- 
ously passed  by,  but  an  attempt  was  made  to  supersede  the 
comitia  tributa  by  the  old  Servian  form  of  the  centuriate 
assembly.^ 

430.  "  Sulla  the  Fortunate  ** :  Character  and  Place  in  History. — - 

After  a  three  years'  absolutism,  Sulla  abdicated,  —  to  go  back 
to  his  debaucheries,  and  to  die  in  peace  shortly  after  as  a  pri- 
vate citizen.  He  is  a  monstrous  enigma  in  history — dauntless, 
crafty,  treacherous,  dissolute,  licentious,  refined,  absolutely  un- 
feeling and  selfish,  and  with  a  mocking  cynicism  that  spiced 
his  conversation  and  conduct.  No  other  civilized  man  has 
ever  so  organized  murder.  Few  have  had  so  clear  a  grasp 
of  ends  and  made  such  unscrupulous  use  of  means.^ 

Apparently  Sulla  believed  sincerely  in  senatorial  govern- 
ment; but  he  had  striven  against  his  age,  and  his  work 
hardly  outlived  his  mortal  body. 

For  Further  Reading. — Mommsen,  bk.  iv.  chs.  vi.  vii.  ix.  x. ;  Ihne, 
V.  (later  chapters) ;  Beesly,  The  Gracchi,  Marms,  and  Sulla  ;  Freeman's 
Sulla  (in  Historical  Essays,  2d  series) ;  Plutarch's  Lives. 

1  On  the  Sullan  Constitution,  see  Mommsen,  IV.  98-139  and  145-150. 

2  See  the  apologetic  view  in  Mommsen,  IV.  138-145. 


364         ^  NEW  CIVIL  STRIFE,  146-49  B.C.  [§  431 

V.    POMPEY  AND  CAESAR,  78-49  B.C. 

431.  General  View The  history  of  the  next  thirty  years— to  the 

rule  of  Caesar  — has  two  phases :  (1)  internally  it  is  a  question  as  to  what 
leader  should  become  master ;  (2)  externally  it  is  marked  by  Pompey's 
organization  of  Roman  dominion  in  the  East  to  the  Euphrates,  and  by 
Caesar's  like  but  more  lasting  work  in  the  West  to  the  Rhine  and  the 
North  Sea.  Naturally,  the  rivalry  for  supreme  power  narrows  down  to 
these  two  men,  and  happily  victory  was  to  fall  to  Caesar,  incomparably  the 
abler  and  nobler  of  the  two. 

A.    Period  of  Pompey's  Leadership,  78-59  B.C. 

432.  Pompey  and  Crassus.  — By  the  death  of  Sulla  two  of  his 
officers  were  left  in  special  prominence, — Pompey  and  Crassus. 
Crassus  was  not  only  a  soldier,  but  also  a  scheming  man  of 
business  who  had  built  up  the  greatest  fortune  in  Rome,  largely 
by  the  purchase  of  confiscated  property  during  the  Sullari  pro- 
scriptions. "Pompey  the  Great,"  with  more  honesty  and  good 
nature,  was  a  man  of  mediocre  ability  —  vain,  sluggish,  cau- 
tious to  timidity,  without  broad  views  or  magnanimous  feel- 
ings, and  without  definite  political  convictions ;  but  he  easily 
held  Crassus  in  check,  and  was  always  a  possible  king  of  Rome 
until  the  rise  of  Caesar  twenty  years  later. 

433.  Pompey's  First  Chance. — Pompey  at  once  compelled  the 
senate  to  send  him  to  Spain  against  Sertorius,^  with  indefinite 
military  power.  It  was  now  clearly  recognized  on  all  sides 
that  the  road  to  the  crown  lay  through  a  position  as  proconsul 
in  a  province  for  a  term  of  years,  with  an  important  war  that 
would  call  for  a  large  and  disciplined  army. 

In  71  B.C.  Pompey  returned  triumphantly,  but  found  Crassus 
also  at  the  head  of  a  victorious  army  that  had  just  crushed  the 
rising  of  Spartacus  (§  406).  The  senatorial  aristocracy  feared 
both  leaders,  and  showed  a  disposition  to  slight  them;  so  the 
two  generals  were  led  into  an  alliance  with  the  democratic  agi- 
tators.    With  their  armies  encamped  by  the  gates,  they  secured 

1  Special  report :  Sertorius  in  Spain.  Read  Plutarch's  interesting  Life  of 
Sertorius. 


§434] 


POMPEY'S  LEADERSHIP. 


365 


their  triumphs  and  their  election  as  consuls,  and  then,  to  pay 
the  democrats,  they  undid  the  chief  work  of  Sulla  by  restoring 
the  tribunes  and  censors.  Sovereignty  was  now  within  the 
reach  of  Pompey ;  he  longed  for  it,  but  did  not  dare  stretch  out 
his  hand  to  grasp  it;^  and  the  politicians  skillfully  played  off 


PoMPEius.  —  A  bust  in  the  Spada  Palace  in  Rome. 

the  two  military  chiefs  against  each  other  until  they  agreed 
to  disband  their  armies  simultaneously.  The  crisis  was  past. 
Pompey,  who  had  expected  still  to  be  the  first  man  in  Kome, 
found  himself  of  very  little  account  among  the  senatorial 
talkers,  and,  for  some  years,  sulked  in  retirement. 

434.   Pompey's  Second  Chance:  Expansion,  and  the  Settlement 
in  the  East.  —  In  67  B.C.  military  danger  called  Pompey  again 


1  Mommsen,  IV.  382-385. 


366  NEW  CIVIL  STRIFE,  146-49  B.C.  [§  435 

to  the  front.  The  Roman  naval  power  had  utterly  decayed. 
Accordingly  the  pirates  had  set  up  a  formidable  state,  with 
headquarters  on  the  rocky  coasts  of  Cilicia;  they  had  paralyzed 
trade  along  the  great  Mediterranean  highway,  ravaged  the 
coasts  of  Italy,  and  even  threatened  Rome  with  starvation  by 
cutting  off  the  grain  fleets.  To  put  them  down,  Pompey  was 
given  supreme  command  for  three  years  in  all  the  Mediterra- 
nean provinces,  with  unlimited  authority  over  all  the  resources 
of  the  empire.  And  when,  by  what  seemed  brilliant  general- 
ship, he  had  swept  the  seas  in  three  months,  his  command  was 
extended  indefinitely  against  the  Pontic  king  Mithridates,  who 
had  recovered  himself  in  the  East.^ 

Pompey  was  absent  on  this  last  mission  five  years  —  a  really 
glorious  period  in  his  career,  and  one  that  proved  the  resources 
and  energies  of  the  commonwealth  unexhausted  if  only  a  re- 
spectable leader  were  found  to  direct  them,  in  place  of  the 
miserable  senatorial  system  of  no-government.  He  waged  suc- 
cessful wars,  crushed  dangerous  rebellions,  conquered  Pontus 
and  Armenia,  annexed  many  wide  provinces,  and  extended 
Roman  control  to  the  Euphrates.^  He  then  organized  these 
provinces,  restored  order,  founded  cities,  and  deposed  and  set 
up  kings  in  the  dependent  states.  When  he  returned  to  Italy 
in  62  B.C.  he  was  the  leading  figure  in  the  world.  Again  the 
crown  was  within  his  grasp;  again  he  let  it  slip,  expecting  it 
to  be  thrust  upon  him ;  and  again  he  was  to  rue  his  indecision. 

435.  New  Leaders  in  Pompey's  Absence.  —  Meantime,  new 
actors  had  risen  to  prominence.  Three  deserve  special  men- 
tion, because  they  represented  three  distinct  forces.  ,  Catojhe^ 
Younger,  great-grandson  of  Cato  the  Censor,  was  a  brave, 
honest,  bigoted  aristocrat,  bent  upon  preserving  the  oligarchic 
Republic.     Cicero,  the  greatest  orator  of  Rome,  was  a  refined 

1  Mithridates  and  his  career  (including  the  "Mithridatic  Wars")  maybe 
made  the  subject  of  a  special  report. 

2  At  this  time  Syria  became  a  Roman  province,  and  the  Jews  sank  from 
their  brief  independence  into  a  dependent  kingdom  (§  260). 


435] 


POMPEY'S   LEADERSHIP. 


367 


scholar,  a  representative  of  the  wealthy  middle  class,  and  their 
idol.  He  desired  reform,  and  at  first  he  inclined  toward  the 
democratic  party;  but,  alarmed  by  their  violence  and  rude- 
ness, he  finally  joined  the  conservatives,  in  the  idle  hope  of 
restoring  the  old  repub- 
lican constitution  and 
character.^ 

However,  neither  of 
these  two  men  deserve 
the  name  of  statesman. 
"Both,"  says  Merivale, 
fitly,  "were  blinded  to 
real  facts  ^.Cato  by  his 
ignorance,  Cicero  by  his 
learning."  The  third 
man  was  to  tower  im- 
measurably above  these 
and  all  other  Komans. 
Caius  Julius  Caesar  was 
the  chief  democratic 
leader,  and  perhaps  the 
greatest  genius  of  all 
history.  He  was  of  an 
old  patrician  family 
that  claimed  divine  de- 
scent through  Aeneas 
and  his  son  lulus  (Julius).  His  youth  had  been  dissolute,  but 
bold ;  and  he  had  refused  with  quiet  dignity  to  put  away  his 
wife  (the  daughter  of  Cinna)  at  Sulla's  order,  though  Pompey 
had  not  hesitated  to  obey  a  like  command.  In  Pompey's 
absence  he  had  served  as  quaestor  and  praetor,  and  he  strove 
ardently  to  reorganize  the  democratic  party.     In  public  speeches 


Cicero.  — The  Vatican  bust. 


1  Cicero  has  been  bitterly  accused  of  cowardly  and  shifty  politics.  Momm- 
sen  is  very  hard  upon  him.  Warde-Fowler's  Caesar  is  sympathetic  in  its 
treatment.  There  is  an  excellent  statement  in  Pelham,  247-252.  For  fuller 
study,  see  Davidson's  Cicero  and  Forsyth's  Cicero. 


368 


NEW   CIVIL  STRIFE,  146-49  B.C. 


[§436 


he  ventured  to  praise  Marius  and  Cinna  as  champions  of  the 
people ;  and  in  the  year  64,  by  a  daring  stroke,  he  again  set 
up  at  the  Capitol  the  trophies  of  Marius,  which  of  course  had 

been  torn  down  in  the 
rule  of  Sulla.  Caesar 
had  tried  also  to 
build  up  some  coun- 
terpoise to  Pompey's 
power,  by  securing  a 
province  in  Egypt ; 
but  his  hopes  had 
been  dashed  by  a 
strange  accident.  In 
63  B.C.  a  reckless  an- 
archistic conspiracy 
of  bankrupt  and 
ruined  men,  led  by 
the  profligate  Catiline^ 
had  been  detected  and 
crushed  by  Cicero,  the 
consul.  The  move- 
ment was  not  one  of 
the  democratic  j)arty 
proper.  It  belonged  to 
the  disreputable  ex- 
tremists who  always 
attach  themselves  to 
a  liberal  party;  but 
the  collapse  reacted 
upon  the  whole  popu- 
lar party,  and  now 
Caesar's  career  seemed  closed  by  Pompey's  return. 


Julius  Caesar.  — The  British  Museum  bust. 


B.     The  Rise  of  Caesar. 

436.   Formation  of  the  First  Triumvirate :  Caesar's  Consulship. 
—  To  the  amazement  of   all  parties,  Pompey  dismissed  his 


§437]  THE   RISE  OF   CAESAR.  369 

veterans  and  came  to  Rome  as  a  private  citizen.  Then  the 
jealous  and  stupid  senate  again  drove  him  into  the  arms  of  the 
democrats :  it  refused  to  give  his  soldiers  the  allotments  he 
had  promised  them,  and  delayed  even  to  ratify  his  political 
arrangements  in  the  East.  Caesar  seized  the  chance  and  formed 
a  coalition  between  Pompey,  Crassus,  and  himself.  Caesar 
furnished  the  brains  and  secured  the  fruits.  He  became  con- 
sul ;  and  then,  with  the  mob  to  back  him,  calmly  setting  aside 
the  veto  of  a  tribune  of  the  senatorial  party  and  of  the  other 
consul,  as  well  as  their  antiquated  religious  prohibitions,  he 
carried  Pompey's  measures  and  also  demolished  the  remains 
of  Sulla's  constitution.^ 

437.  Caesar  in  Gaul :  New  Expansion  in  the  West.  —  At  the 
close  of  his  year's  consulship,  with  Pompey's  aid,  Caesar  as 
pro-consul  received  command  of  the  Cisalpine  and  Transalpine  ^ 
Gallic  provinces  for  five  years. 

The  appointment  was  one  of  the  happy  accidents  that  in- 
fluence all  history.  For  the  next  ten  years  Caesar  abandoned 
Italy  for  the  supreme  work  that  opened  to  him  beyond  the 
Alps.  He  found  the  Province  threatened  by  two  great  mili- 
tary invasions :  the  whole  people  of  the  Helvetii  were  migrat- 
ing from  their  Alpine  homes  in  search  of  more  fertile  lands, 
and  a  great  German  nation,  under  the  king  Ariovistus,  was 
already  encamped  in  Gaul.  The  Gauls  themselves  had  adopted 
some  civilization,  but  they  were  distracted  by  intestine  feuds 
and  grievously  oppressed  by  their  disorderly  chieftains. 

Caesar  grasped  the  danger  and  the  opportunity.  He  hastily 
levied  armies,  and  in  one  summer  drove  back  the  Helvetii  and 

1  See  Mommsen  for  details.  Caesar's  consulship  is  a  good  subject  for  a 
special  report. 

2  The  possession  of  Spain  had  made  the  possession  of  southern  Gaul  need- 
ful as  a  connecting  link ;  but  the  Romans  did  not  enter  the  district  as  con- 
querors until  they  were  appealed  to  for  protection  by  the  ancient  Greek  colony 
Massilia,  their  "ally."  Before  120  b.c,  however,  the  southern  part  of  Gaul 
had  been  made  a  province,  commonly  known  as  The  Province  (modern 
Provence) . 


370  NEW  CIVIL  STRIFE,  146-49  B.C.  [§  438 

annihilated  the  Germans.  Then  he  seized  upon  the  Rhine  as 
the  proper  Roman  frontier,  and,  in  a  series  of  masterly  cam- 
paigns, he  made  all  Gaul  Roman,  extending  his  expeditions 
even  into  Britain.  The  story  is  told  with  incomparable 
lucidity  in  his  own  Commentaries.*  Whatever  we  think  of  the 
morality  of  the  conquests  (and  their  justification  rests  upon 
much  the  same  basis  as  does  the  American  occupation  of  this 
continent  at  the  expense  of  the  natives),  they  were  to  result  in 
infinite  good  for  mankind.^  The  result  was  twofold,  (a)  Again 
the  wave  of  German  invasion  was  checked  until  Roman  civili- 
zation should  have  time  to  do  its  work  and  to  prepare  the 
way  for  the  Christian  church.  "  Let  the  Alps  now  sink,"  ex- 
claimed Cicero;  "the  gods  raised  them  to  shelter  Italy  from 
the  barbarians,  but  they  are  no  longer  needed."  (b)  A  wider 
home  for  Roman  civilization  was  won  among  fresh  popula- 
tions, unexhausted  and  vigorous.  The  map  widened  from  the 
Mediterranean  circle  to  include  the  shores  of  the  North  and 
Baltic  seas.  The  land  that  Caesar  made  Roman  was,  next  to 
Greece,  to  form  down  to  the  present  time  the  chief  instructor 
of  Europe ;  while,  but  for  this  work  of  Caesar,  "  our  civilization 
itself  would  have  stood  in  hardly  more  intimate  relation  to  the 
Romano-Greek  than  to  Assyrian  culture."  ^ 

438.  The  Rupture  between  Caesar  and  Pompey.  —  The  close  of 
the  first  five  years  saw  Caesar  easily  superior  to  his  colleagues, 
and  able  to  seize  power  at  Rome  if  he  chose.  But  it  was 
never  his  way  to  leave  the  work  in  hand  unfinished ;  and  he 
renewed  the  alliance  in  55  b.c,  securing  the  Gauls  for  five 
years  more  for  himself,  giving  Spain  to  Pompey  and  Asia  to 
Crassus.     Crassus  soon  perished  in  battle  with  the  Parthians^ 

1  Special  reports :  Caesar  in  Britain  ;  revolt  of  Vercingetorix ;  the  Druids. 

2  Says  John  Fiske,  "  We  ought  to  be  thankful  to  Caesar  every  day  that  we 
live."  Read  Fiske's  American  Political  Ideas,  108-113,  and  Roosevelt's  Win- 
ning of  the  West,  III.  45-46  and  174-176,  for  their  justification  of  wars  with 
savages  as  "  the  most  ultimately  righteous  of  all  wars." 

*  Read  Mommsen,  V.  100-102,  for  an  admirable  statement. 

*  Special  report:  Crassus'  campaign. 


§438]  CAESAR  AND   POMPEY.  371 

(a  new,  huge,  barbaric  empire  reaching  from  the  Euphrates  to 
the  Indus);  and  it  became  more  and  more  apparent  that  the 
question  could  not  be  postponed  long  as  to  whether  Caesar  or 
Pompey  was  to  rule  at  Rome.  Pompey,  in  his  jealousy  of  his 
more  brilliant  rival,  drew  nearer  to  the  senate  again,  and  was 
finally  adopted  by  that  terrified  body  as  their  champion.  He 
was  made  sole  consul,  and  at  the  same  time  his  military  com- 
mands abroad  were  continued  to  him.  The  aristocrats  planned 
to  destroy  Caesar  when  his  term  of  ofiice  should  expire ;  and 
by  a  complex  series  of  acts,  marked  by  vacillating  bad  faith, 
they  even  tried  to  deprive  him  of  his  army  before  the  settled 
time,  and  so  forced  on  the  civil  war. 

For  Further  Reading  on  Division  V.  —  Mommsen,  bk.  v.  chs.  vii.-ix. ; 
Merivale's  Triumvirates ;  Pelhara ;  Warde-Fowler's  Caesar ;  Davidson's 
Cicero;  Froude's  Caesar;  Plutarch's  iives  {Caesar^  Lucullus^  Crassus). 


REVIEW  EXERCISES   ON  PART  IV. 

1.  Review  by  the  syllabus  in  the  table  of  contents. 

2.  Review  questions  prepared  by  class  (as  on  page  75). 

3.  Fact  drills. 

a.  Dates.  The  class,  of  course,  continue  drill  on  the  list  on  page 
246.  Fill  out  the  following  tablo,  and  group  other  dates  around 
these.  Use  the  table  of  dates  in  the  Appendix  for  review  ;  note 
especially  the  relative  rates  of  development  of  Greece  and  Rome 
in  the  several  periods  or  centuries. 

510  ?  B.C.     "  Expulsion  "  of  the  kings. 

390      "      Sack  of  Rome  by  the  Gauls. 

367      "      

266       "      

218       "       (Cf.  220  B.C.  — Greek  History.) 

146       "      

6.  List  of  Rome's  wars  after  390  b.c. 

c.  List  of  ten  important  battles  (see  page  246). 

d.  List  of  names  and  terms  for  explanation  ;  as,  curule  office,  Vale 
rian  law,  "  Twelve  Tables,^''  the  consul  Nero,  Cornelia,  etc. 


PART  V. 

THE  EOMAN  EMPIEE   (THE  aEAEOO-EOMAN  WOELD). 

Borne  was  the  whole  world,  and  all  the  world  was  Borne. 

—  Spensek,  Buins  of  Borne. 

Even  now  a  sovereign  who  should  thus  hold  all  the  lands  round  the 
Mediterranean  Sea,  and  whose  borders  should  be  the  Bhine,  the  Danube, 
and  the  Euphrates,  would  be  incomparably  the  strongest  ruler  in  the  world; 
yet  now  America  and  Australia  are  in  the  scale  altering  the  balance  of 
power,  the  great  Slavonic  Empire  of  the  North  rules  over  territories  prac- 
tically imknown  to  the  Boman,  and  China  and  Japan  have  come  forth 
from  the  seclusion  of  centuries.  As  has  been  often  pointed  out,  when 
Borne  ruled  she  was  not  only  the  greatest,  but  practically  the  only  Power 
of  which  the  statesman  and  the  philosopher  took  any  cognisance. 

—  HoDGKiN,  in  Contemporary  Beview,  January,  1898,  p.  53. 

Bepuhlican  Bome  had  little  to  do  either  by  precept  or  example  with 
modern  life;  imperial  Bome,  evei'ything. — SxiLLi:,  Studies,  17. 


CHAPTER   I. 

FOUNDING     THE    EMPIRE:    JULIUS    AND    OCTAVIUS, 
49  B.C.-14  A.D. 

I.   THE  FIVE  YEARS  OF  JULIUS  CAESAR. 

A.     The  Moral  Question. 

439.  Monarchy  at  Rome  Inevitable.  —  Three  conditions  of  the 
past  century  made  monarchy  now  imperative :  (a)  the  corrup- 
tion of  the  populace  in  the  capital ;  (b)  the  military  danger  on 
the  frontiers ;  and  (c)  the  maladministration  of  the  provinces. 
As  a  result  of  the  first,  in  Rome  itself j  the  tremendous  power  of 

372 


§440]  THE  FIVE   YEARS   OF  JULIUS  CAESAR.  373 

the  tribunes  had  grown  into  occasional  dictatorships  {i.e.  Grac- 
chus and  Sulpicius).  From  the  second,  it  had  come  to  pass 
abroad  that  special  commissions  in  times  of  peril  extended  the 
mighty  authority  of  a  one-year  proconsul  of  a  single  province 
into  unlimited  sovereignty  over  vaster  areas  for  indefinite  time 
(i.e.  Marius,  Sulla,  Pompey,  Caesar).  To  make  a  monarch 
needed  but  to  unite  these  two  new  powers  in  one  person. 

440.   Monarchy  Right :  Caesar  the  Hope  of  the  Subject  Nations.  — 

Thus  the  first  two  conditions  of  themselves  made  a  monarchy 
inevitable ;  the  third  condition  made  it  right.  There  might 
have  arisen  a  purely  selfish  despot.  It  is  Caesar's  peculiar 
honor  that  he,  more  than  any  other  statesman  of  the  time,  felt 
the  third  need,  and  that  he  rose  to  power  as  the  representa- 
tive of  the  suffering  subject-populations.  He  had  undoubtedly 
come  to  see  that  in  any  case  the  only  government  for  that  age 
was  one-man  rule ;  the  existing  commonwealth  he  called  "  a 
body  without  a  soul."  But  his  special  aim  was  to  mold  the 
distracted  Roman  world  into  a  mighty  empire  under  equal  laws. 
His  monarchic  faith  was  not  a  renunciation  of  the  old  democ- 
racy, so  much  as  a  broadening  of  it.  From  the  champion  of 
the  city  mob  against  an  aristocratic  ring,  he  had  become  the 
champion  of  wide  nationalities  against  the  same  narrow  circle 
and  the  mob  of  a  single  city.  Already,  as  proconsul,  he  had 
admitted  the  Cisalpine  Gauls  to  all  the  privileges  of  citizen- 
ship, on  his  own  authority.  In  the  midst  of  arduous  campaigns, 
he  had  kept  up  correspondence  with  leading  provincials  in  all 
parts  of  the  empire.  He  had  expended  vast  sums,  too,  in 
adorning  and  improving  provincial  cities,  not  only  in  his  own 
districts  of  Gaul  and  Spain,  but  also  in  Asia  and  Greece.  His 
army  itself  was  drawn  from  Cisalpine  Gaul,  and  indeed  partly 
from  Gaul  beyond  the  Alps.  The  subject  nationalities  were 
learning  to  look  to  him  as  their  best  hope  against  senatorial 
rapacity ;  and  the  great  body  of  them  wished  for  monarchy  as 
the  only  legitimate  government  and  the  only  escape  from 
anarchy.     It  was  no  longer  possible  to  regard  only  the  inhabit- 


374  FOUNDING  THE  ROMAN  EMPIRE.  [§441 

ants  of  the  degenerate  capital.  It  was  right,  as  well  as  need- 
ful, for  statesmen  to  consult  the  interests  and  views  of  the 
vaster  populations  of  the  provinces.  Caesar  aimed  to  make 
himself  the  interpreter  and  guide  of  that  new  imperial  will,  as 
opposed  to  the  will  of  the  petty,  selfish  clique  that  demanded 
to  sway  the  world  in  its  own  paltry  interests. 

"  Whatever  we  think  of  his  personal  morality,  we  must  acknowledge 
that  it  was  well  a  man  of  genius  should  arise  at  such  a  crisis  to  direct  the 
general  sentiment  and  to  show  how  it  could  be  realized."  i 

—  Merivale,  Triumvirates^  72. 

441.  The  Question  Relative,  not  Absolute.  —  Of  course,  to  call 
Caesar  right  in  his  day,  is  not  to  call  "  Caesarism "  right  in 
all  times  and  places.  The  study  of  history  should  teach  that 
all  such  questions  are  relative.  No  institution  can  be  judged 
apart  from  the  surrounding  conditions.  A  "  Caesar  "  in  Eome 
in  200  B.C.  would  have  been  a  criminal;  the  real  Caesar  in 
50  B.C.  was  a  benefactor. 

Moreover,  to  say  that  imperial  government  was  the  happiest 
solution  then  possible  is  not  to  call  it  an  unmixed  good.  No 
perfectly  happy  outcome  was  possible  to  that  Roman  world, 
indisposed  to  representative  institutions  and  based  on  slavery 
and  militarism.  But  a  despotism  can  get  along  on  less  politi- 
cal virtue  and  intelligence  than  a  free  government  can.  The 
evils  that  were  finally  to  overthrow  the  Empire  five  centuries 
later  had  all  appeared  in  the  last  century  of  the  Republic  —  in 
forms  deadly  to  the  Roman  world  under  that  system.  The 
change  to  the  imperial  system  restored  material  well-being  and 
staved  off  the  final  collapse  for  a  time  as  long  as  separates 
us  from  Luther  or  Columbus.  The  interval  was  precious ;  for 
in  it,  under  Raman  protection,  priceless  work  was  to  be  done 
for  humanity.  But  finally  the  medicine  of  despotism  ex- 
hausted its   good  effect;    its  own  poison  was  added  to  the 


1  J.  R.  Seeley  denies  the  uplifting  of  the  provincials  as  an  aim  of  Caesar, 
admitting  it  only  as  a  result.    See  his  Roman  Imperialism  for  that  view. 


§443]  THE  FIVE  YEARS  OF  JULIUS  CAESAR.  375 

older  evils ;   and  the  collapse,  threatened  in  the  first  century 
B.C.,  came  in  the  fifth  century  a.d. 

B.   The  Civil  War. 

442.  Caesar  crosses  the  Rubicon:  Campaign  in  Italy. — Caesar 
had  finished  his  work  in  Gaul  in  the  nick  of  time,  and  was  free 
to  meet  his  enemies  at  Rome  and  to  take  up  his  greater  designs. 
He  still  shrank  from  civil  war.  He  hoped  to  secure  the  consul- 
ship, and  he  seems  to  have  trusted,  in  that  event,  to  his  ability 
as  a  statesman  to  accomplish  his  ends  without  violence.  Ac- 
cordingly, he  made  offer  after  offer  of  conciliation,  finally  con- 
ceding all  that  his  opponents  had  claimed ;  but  he  was  rebuffed 
by  Pompey  and  the  senate,  and  his  friends  were  driven  from 
Eome. 

Caesar's  decision  was  finally  taken.  He  had  only  one  legion 
in  Cisalpine  Gaul;  but,  in  January,  49  B.C.,  he  led  it  into 
Italy.  This  was  an  act  of  war,  and  the  story  goes  that  as  he 
crossed  the  Rubicon — the  little  stream  between  his  province 
and  Italy  — he  exclaimed,  "  The  die  is  cast ! "  He  never  again 
looked  back.  With  audacious  and  characteristic  rapidity  he 
moved  directly  upon  the  much  larger  forces  that  ponderous 
Pompey  was  mustering  at  leisure ;  and  in  sixty  days,  almost 
without  bloodshed,  he  was  master  of  the  peninsula. 

443.  Campaigns  in  Spain  and  Greece.  —  Pompey  was  still  in 
control  of  most  of  the  empire,  but  Caesar  had  the  prestige  of 
the  capital  and  the  advantage  of  Italy's  central  position.  Turn- 
ing to  Spain,  in  three  months  he  had  dispersed  the  veteran 
armies  of  Pompey's  lieutenants  there;  and  then,  following 
Pompey  himself  to  Greece,  in  the  critical  campaign  of  48  B.C. 
he  became  master  of  the  world. 

The  decisive  battle  was  fought  at  Pharsalus  in  Thessaly. 
Caesar's  little  army,  living  for  weeks  on  roots  and  bark  of 
trees,  numbered  less  than  half  Pompey's  well-appointed  troops. 
Pompey  held  his  choice  of  positions,  and  he  had  never  been 
beaten  in  the  field.     It  looked  for  a  time  as  though  Caesar  had 


376'  FOUNDING  THE  ROMAN  EMPIRE.  [§444 

rashly  invited  ruin.  But  one  commander,  despite  his  success- 
ful career,  was  "  formed  for  a  corporal  and  forced  to  be  a  gen- 
eral " ;  while  the  other,  though  caring  not  at  all  for  military 
glory,  was  one  of  the  two  or  three  greatest  captains  of  all  time. 
Almost  as  much  the  armies  differed  in  real  fighting  power. 
For  the  vital  forces  of  the  contending  camps,  and  their  mean- 
ing, Warde-Fowler's  summary  is  masterly  {Caesar j  299)  :  — 

"On  one  side  the  disunion,  selfishness,  and  pride  of  the  last  survivors 
of  an  ancient  oligarchy,  speculating  before  the  event  on  the  wealth  or 
office  that  victory  was  to  bring  them  ;  on  the  other,  the  absolute  command 
of  a  single  man,  whose  clear  mental  vision  was  entirely  occupied  with  the 
facts  and  issues  that  lay  before  him  that  day.  The  one  host  was  composed 
in  great  part  of  a  motley  crowd  from  Greece  and  the  East,  representing 
that  spurious  Hellenic  civilization  that  for  a  century  had  sapped  the  vigor 
of  Roman  life  ;  the  other  was  chiefly  drawn  from  the  Gallic  populations 
of  Italy  and  the  West,  fresh,  vigorous,  intelligent,  and  united  in  devotion 
and  loyalty  to  a  leader  whom  not  even  defeat  could  dishearten.  With 
Pompeius  was  the  spirit  of  the  past,  and  his  failure  did  but  answer  to  the 
failure  of  a  decaying  world  ;  with  Caesar  was  the  spirit  of  the  future,  and 
his  victory  marks  the  moment  when  humanity  could  once  more  start  hope- 
fully upon  a  new  line  of  progress." 

444.  The  Four  remaining  Campaigns.  —  Other  wars  hindered 
the  great  work  of  reorganization.  Egypt  and  Asia  Minor  each 
required  a  campaign ;  ^  and  in  Egypt,  too,  under  the  seductive 
wiles  of  the  voluptuous  queen,  Cleopatra,  Caesar  seems  to  have 
wasted  a  few  months.  If  so,  he  partly  atoned  by  his  swift 
prosecution  of  the  war  in  Asia  against  Pharnaces,  son  of  Mith- 
ridates.  It  was  this  campaign  that  Caesar  reported  pithily  to 
the  senate  in  the  historic  phrase,  "  I  came,  I  saw,  I  conquered." 
Meantime,  Cato  and  the  senatorial  4)arty  had  raised  troops 
in  Africa  and  called  in  the  humiliating  aid  of  the  Numidian 
king.     Caesar  crushed  them  at  Thapsus.^     Somewhat  later, 

^  Special  report :  siege  of  Caesar  in  Alexandria. 

2  Cato,  stern  republican  that  he  was,  committed  suicide  at  Utica,  unwill- 
ing to  survive  the  commonwealth.  His  death  was  admired  by  the  ancient 
world,  and  cast  an  undeserved  halo  about  the  expiring  Republican  cause. 
More  than  anything  else,  it  has  led  later  writers  to  treat  Caesar  as  the  ambi- 


§446]  THE  FIVE   YEARS   OF  JULIUS  CAESAR.  377 

Pompey's  sons  and  the  last  remnants  of  their  party  were  over- 
thrown in  Spain  at  Munda, 

C.     Constructive  Work.* 

445.  Clemency  and  Reconciliation. — The  first  effort  of  the 
new  ruler,  went  to  reconcile  Italy.  All  respectable  classes 
there  had  trembled  when  he  crossed  the  Eubicon,  expecting 
new  Marian  massacres  or  at  least  a  new  Catilinian  war  upon 
property.  But  Caesar  maintained  strict  order,  guarded  prop- 
erty rights  carefully,  and  punished  no  political  opponent  who 
laid  down  arms.  Only  one  of  his  soldiers  had  refused  to  follow 
him  when  he  decided  upon  civil  war.  Caesar  sent  all  this 
officer's  property  after  him  to  Pompey's  camp;  and  he  con- 
tinued that  policy  toward  the  nobles  who  left  Italy  to  join 
Pompey  at  the  close  of  the  first  campaign,  even  when  their 
actions,  in  some  cases,  savored  of  treachery.  On  the  field  of 
victory,  too,  he  checked  the  vengeance  of  his  soldiers,  calling 
upon  them  to  remember  that  the  enemy  were  their  fellow- 
citizens  ;  and  after  Pharsalus  he  employed  in  the  public  service 
any  Eoman  of  ability,  without  regard  to  the  side  he  had  fought 
on.  In  Gaul,  Caesar's  warfare  had  been  largely  of  the  cruel 
kind  so  common  in  Roman  annals,  but  his  clemency  in  the 
civil  war  was  without  example.  It  brought  its  proper  fruit, 
however;  and  almost  at  once  all  classes,  except  a  few  extre- 
mists, became  heartily  reconciled  to  his  government. 

446.  The  Form  of  the  New  Monarchy.  —  The  old  republican 
forms  continued  for  the  most  part.  Except  for  some  brief 
intervals,  the  senate  deliberated,  and  consuls  and  praetors  were 
elected,  as  before.  But  Caesar  drew  the  more  important  powers 
into  his  own  hands.  He  received  the  tribunician  power  for  life, 
and  likewise  the  authority  of  a  life  censor.     He  was  already 

tious  destroyer  of  his  country's  liberty.   Read  the  story  in  Plutarch's  Life  of 
Cato. 

1  Warde-Fowler,  326-359 ;  How  and  Leigh,  539-551 ;  Merivale,  Triumvirates, 
135,  139, 157-170 ;  Mommsen,  bk.  v.  eh.  xi. 


378  FOUNDING  THE  ROMAN  EMPIRE.  [§447 

head  of  tlie  state-religion  as  Pontifex  Maximus.  Now  he  ac- 
cepted also  a  dictatorship  for  life  and  the  title  of  Imperator 
for  himself  and  his  descendants.  Probably  (like  Cromwell  in 
England  later)  he  would  have  liked  the  title  of  king,  since  the 
recognized  authority,  and  forms  that  went  with  it,  would  have 
helped  to  maintain  order;  but  when  he  found  that  term  still 
hateful  to  the  unthinking  populace,  he  seems  to  have  designed 
this  hereditary  Imperatorship,  with  its  ancient  significance  of 
the  supreme  imperium,  for  the  title  of  the  new  monarchy. 
Had  he  succeeded  in  setting  up  a  strictly  hereditary  govern- 
ment, the  world  would  have  been  spared  many  of  the  worst 
evils  of  the  next  four  centuries. 

447.  General  Measures  of  Reform.  —  The  measures  of  reform 
embraced  Rome,  Italy,  and  the  empire.  A  bankrupt  law  on 
the  general  lines  followed  by  modern  legislation  released  all 
debtors  from  further  personal  obligation,  if  they  surrendered 
their  entire  estates  to  their  creditors, —  and  so  the  demoralized 
society  was  given  a  chance  at  a  fresh  start.  A  commission 
to  reclaim  and  allot  public  lands  was  put  to  work.  Landlords 
were  required  to  employ  at  least  one  free  laborer  for  every  two 
slaves.  Italian  colonization  in  the  provinces  was  pressed  vig- 
orously, to  the  mutual  advantage  of  Italy  and  of  the  outside 
empire.  In  his  early  consulship  (59  b.c),  Caesar  had  refounded 
Capua;  now  he  did  the  like  for  Carthage  and  Corinth,  and 
these  noble  capitals  that  had  been  criminally  destroyed  by  the 
narrow  jealousy  of  republican  Eome,  rose  again  to  wealth  and 
power.  Eighty  thousand  landless  citizens  of  Rome  were  pro- 
vided for  beyond  seas;  and  by  these  and  other  means  the 
helpless  proletariat  in  the  capital,  dependent  upon  free  grain, 
was  reduced  from  three  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  to  one 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand.  Beyond  doubt,  with  longer  life^ 
Caesar  would  have  lessened  the  evil  further.  Rigid  economy 
was  introduced  into  all  branches  of  the  government.  Taxation 
was  equalized,  reduced,  and  made  more  productive.  A  com- 
prehensive census  was  taken  for  all  Italy,  and  measures  were 


§448]  THE   FIVE   YEARS   OF  JULIUS   CAESAR.  379 

under  way  to  extend  it  over  the  empire,  as  was  done  later  by 
Augustus.  Caesar  also  reformed  the  calendar  ^  and  the  coinage ; 
began  the  codification  of  the  irregular  mass  of  Roman  law; 
created  the  ^Tst  public  library  (belonging  to  the  public,  as  well 
as  designed  for  its  use)  ;  built  a  new  Forum ;  drained  the 
Pomptine  marshes ;  and  began  other  vast  public  works  in  all 
parts  of  the  empire. 

448.  The  Provinces.  —  The  system  of  provincial  administra- 
tion was  made  over.  The  old  governors  had  been  ignorant  and 
irresponsible  tyrants,  with  every  temptation  to  plunder  their 
charge.  Under  Caesar  they  became  the  trained  servants  of  a 
stern  master  who  looked  to  the  welfare  of  the  whole  empire. 
Their  authority,  too,  was  lessened,  and  they  were  surrounded 
by  a  system  of  indirect  checks  in  the  presence  of  other  officials 
dependent  directly  upon  the  Imperator.  The  governors  soon 
came  to  be  paid  fixed  salaries,  and  were  not  allowed  even  to 
accept  presents  from  the  provincials. 

But  more  important  than  such  repeal  of  abuses  was  Caesar's 
positive  programme  to  put  the  provinces  upon  an  equality  with 
Italy.  ^'As  provinces  they  were  to  disappear,  to  prepare  for  the 
renovated  Romano-Greek  nation  a  new  and  more  spacious  home, 
of  whose  several  parts  no  one  existed  merely  for  the  others,  hut 
all  for  each  and  each  for  all.^^  ^  All  Cisalpine  Gaul  was  in- 
corporated in  Italy,  and  Roman  citizenship  was  enormously 
multiplied  by  the  addition  of  whole  communities  in  Farther 
Gaul,  in  Spain,  and  elsewhere.  Leading  Gauls,  too,  despite 
Italian  prejudice,  were  admitted  to  the  reformed  senate,  which 
Caesar  hoped  to  raise  to  a  Grand  Council  really  representa- 
tive of  the  needs  and  feelings  of  the  empire. 

1  The  Roman  calendar,  inferior  to  the  Egyptian,  had  got  three  months  out 
of  the  way,  so  that  the  spring  equinox  came  in  June.  Caesar  made  the  year  46 
("  the  last  year  of  confusion  ")  consist  of  four  hundred  and  forty-five  days,  to 
correct  the  error,  and  for  the  future,  instituted  the  system  of  leap  years,  as  we 
have  it,  except  for  the  slight  correction  of  Pope  Gregory  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury.   The  reform  was  based  upon  the  Egyptian  system  (§  26) . 

2  Read  Mommsen,  V.  415^17,  also  427,  428. 


380 


FOUNDING   THE   ROMAN   EMPIRE. 


[§449 


449.  The  Unforeseen  Interruption.  —  In  a  few  months  Caesar 
had  won  the  favor  of  the  Eonian  populace,  the  general  sympa- 
thy of  the  respectable  classes  in  Italy,  and  the  enthusiastic 
reverence  of  the  provinces.  He  was  still  in  the  prime  of  a 
strong  and  active  manhood,  and  had  every  reason  to  hope  for 
time  to  complete  his  work.  No  public  enemy  could  be  raised 
against  him  within  the  empire.  One  danger  there  was :  lurk- 
ing assassins  beset  his  path ;  but  with  characteristic  dignity  he 

quietly  refused  a  body- 
guard, declaring  it  better 
to  die  at  any  time  than 
to  live  always  in  fear  of 
death.  And  so,  in  the 
midst  of  preparation  for 
expeditions  against  the 
Parthians  and  Germans 
to  rectify  the  frontiers, 
the  murderous  daggers  of 
men  whom  he  had  spared 
and  heaped  with  favors, 
struck  him  down.  A 
group  of  irreconcilable 
nobles,  led  by  the  weak 
enthusiast  Brutus  and 
the  envious  Cassius, 
plotted  to  take  his  life. 
They  accomplished  their  crime  in  the  senate  house,  on  the 
Ides  of  March  (March  15),  44  b.c.  Crowding  around  him, 
and  fawning  upon  him  as  to  ask  a  favor,  the  assassins  sud- 
denly drew  their  daggers.  According  to  an  old  story,  Caesar 
at  first  stood  on  his  defense,  calling  for  help,  and  wounded 
Cassius ;  but  when  he  saw  the  loved  and  trusted  Brutus  in  the 
snarling  pack,  he  cried  out  sadly,  "  What !  thou,  too,  Brutus  !  " 
and  drawing  his  toga  about  him  with  calm  dignity,  he  resisted 
no  longer,  but  sank  at  the  foot  of  Pompey's  statue,  bleeding 
from  three  and  twenty  stabs. 


Marcus  Brutus.  —  A  bust  now  in  the 
Capitoline  Museum. 


§450]  THE  FIVE  YEARS   OF  JULIUS   CAESAR.  381 

450.  Caesar's  Character.  —  Caesar  has  been  called  the  one 
original  genius  in  Roman  history.  His  gracious  courtesy  and 
unrivaled  charm  won  all  hearts,  so  that  it  is  said  his  ene- 
mies dreaded  personal  interviews,  lest  they  be  drawn  to  his 
side.  Toward  his  friends  he  never  wearied  in  forbearance 
and  love.  In  the  civil  war  young  Curio,  a  dashing  but  reck- 
less lieutenant,  lost  two  legions  and  undid  much  good  work  — 
to  Caesar's  great  peril.  Curio  refused  to  survive  his  blunder, 
and  found  death  on  the  field;  but  Caesar,  with  no  word  of 
reproachful  criticism,  refers  to  the  disaster  only  to  excuse 
it  kindly  by  reference  to  Curio's  youth  and  to  "his  faith  in 
his  good  fortune  from  his  former  success." 

In  work,  no  man  ever  excelled  Caesar  in  quick  perception  of 
means,  fertility  of  resource,  dash  in  execution,  or  tireless  activ- 
ity. His  opponent  Cicero  said  of  him:  "He  had  genius,  un- 
derstanding, memory,  taste,  reflection,  industry,  exactness." 
Numerous  anecdotes  are  told  of  the  many  activities  he  could 
carry  on  at  one  time,  and  of  his  dictating  six  or  more  letters 
to  as  many  scribes  at  once.  Says  a  modern  critic,  "  He  was 
great  as  a  captain,  statesman,  lawgiver,  jurist,  orator,  poet, 
historian,  grammarian,  mathematician,  architect." 

No  doubt  "  Caesar  was  ambitious."  He  was  not  a  philan- 
thropic enthusiast  merely,  but  a  broad-minded,  intellectual 
genius,  with  a  strong  man's  delight  in  ruling  well.  He  saw 
clearly  what  was  to  do,  and  knew  perfectly  his  own  su- 
preme ability  to  do  it.  Caesar  and  Alexander  are  the  two 
great  captains  whose  conquests  have  done  most  for  civilization. 
But  Caesar,  master  in  war  as  he  was,  always  preferred  states- 
manship, and  was  perfectly  free  from  Alexander's  boyish 
liking  for  mere  fighting.  Beside  the  Greek,  the  Roman  had 
less  of  poetic  idealism  and  more  of  practical  sagacity.  And 
yet  the  two  had  much  in  common,  and  both  tower,  mighty 
giants,  above  vulgar  conquerors,  like  a  Napoleon,  moved  by 
lower  ambitions. 

The  seven  campaigns  in  the  five  years  after  he  crossed  the 
Rubicon  left  Caesar  less  than  eighteen  months  for  his  great 


382  FOUNDING  THE  ROMAN  EMPIRE.  [§  451 

plans  of  reorganization.  Even  this  short  time  was  in  broken 
intervals  between  wars,  and  the  whole  routine  of  ordinary  gov- 
ernment had  to  be  taken  care  of  also.  Of  course  the  new  work 
remained  incomplete,  and  it  is  not  always  possible  to  tell  just 
what  Caesar  planned  to  do ;  but  that  which  was  actually  accom- 
plished dazzles  the  imagination.  His  genius,  too,  marked 
out  the  lines  along  which,  on  the  whole,  his  successors,  how- 
ever less  gi-andly,  had  to  move.  His  murder  was  as  imbecile 
as  it  was  wicked.  It  struck  the  wise  monarch,  but  not  the 
monarchy,  and  only  left  Caesar's  work  to  be  completed  by 
smaller  men,  after  a  new  period  of  anarchy.  We  can  do  no 
better,  in  leaving  "  the  foremost  man  of  all  this  world,"  than 
to  use  the  words  of  Mommsen :  "  Thus  he  worked  and  created 
as  never  any  mortal  before  or  after  him ;  and  as  a  worker  and 
creator  he  still,  after  two  thousand  years,  lives  in  the  memory 
of  the  nations  —  the  first  and  the  unique  Imperator  Caesar ! "  ^ 

For  Fuether  Reading.  —  White'' s  Appian,  for  the  ipenod]  Mommsen, 
bk.  V.  chs.  x.-xi;  Warde-Fowler's  Caesar  (Heroes);  Davidson's  Cicero 
(Heroes);  Trollope's  Cicero;  Froude's  Caesar;  Pelham ;  Merivale's 
Triumvirates;  Plutarch's  Lives  {Caesar^  Pompeius,  Crassus,  Cicero^ 
Brutus). 

II.    FROM  JULIUS   TO   OCTAVIUS,  44-31  B.C. 

461.  Antonius  and  Octavius. — Caesar's  assassination  led  to 
fifteen  years  more  of  dreary  and  needless  civil  war.  The 
murderers  had  hoped  to  be  greeted  as  liberators ;  but  to  their 
dismay  all  classes  shrank  from  them,  and  they  fled.  In  Italy 
control  soon  fell  to  two  new  men,  Antonius  and  Octavius.  An- 
tonius, an  old  officer  of  Caesar,  was  a  dissolute,  resolute,  daring 
soldier.  Octavius  was  a  grand-nephew  and  adopted  son  of 
Caesar ;  he  was  an  unknown,  sickly  youth  of  nineteen,  but  he 
soon  proved  himself  the  strongest  statesman  of  the  empire. 

1  Read  the  rest  of  Momrasen's  fine  summary,  V.  441-442,  and,  for  Caesar's 
character,  the  famous  passage,  pp.  305-314.  See  also  a  fine  passage  on  the 
necessity  of  the  Empire,  and  on  Caesar's  work,  in  Hodgkin's  Fall  of  the  Roman 
Empire^  in  the  Contemporary  Review  for  January,  1898,  pp.  53-68. 


§  454]  FROM  JULIUS  TO   OCTAVIUS,  44-31  B.C.  383 

452.  Formation  of  the  Second  Triumvirate.  —  At  first  the  two 
leaders  seemed  about  to  come  to  blows,  but  by  the  shrewd 
policy  of  Octavius  they  united  their  forces,  and,  to  secure 
the  West '  thoroughly,  they  added  to  their  league  Lepidus, 
governor  of  Gaul  and  Spain.  The  three  then  got  themselves 
appointed  triumvirs  by  the  senate  :  they  were  given  unlimited 
power  for  five  years  to 
reorganize  the  state;  and 
their  dictatorship  they 
afterward  extended  at 
will.i 

453.  The  Proscription. — 

The  union  was  cemented 

with    blood.       The    first 

deed     of     the     triumvirs 

was  to  get   rid   of    their 

personal  foes  in  Italy  by  a 

horrible  proscription,  each 

marking  off  on  the  fatal 

list  those   whose    deaths 

he    demanded,  and    each 

surrendering  an  uncle,  a 

brother,    or     a     trusting 

friend,  to  the  other's  hate. 

It   was  at   this  time  that      Octavius  Caesau  ^Ai<;usTus)  AS  A  Boy. 

^.  .11  A  bust  now  in  the  Vatican. 

Cicero  perished. 

454.  Final  Overthrow  of  the  Oligarchs ;  Philippi.  —  Meantime 
Brutus  and  Cassius  had  been  rallying  the  old  Pompeian  forces 
in  the  East.  Their  army  contained  troops  from  Parthia,. 
Armenia,  Media,  Pontus,  and  Thrace.  Again  the  East  and 
West  met  in  conflict,  and  again  the  West  won  —  at  Philippi  in 
Macedonia  (42  b.c).  This  was  the  last  time  the  "Republi- 
cans "  appeared  in  arms. 

1  Note  that  the  term  triumvirate  is  official  in  this  use,  while  the  so-called 
first  triumvirate  was  an  unofficial  league,  or  ring,  of  public  men. 


384  FOUNDING  THE   ROMAN   EMPIRE.  [§456 

455.  Dissensions  of  the  Triumvirs;  Actium.  —  Then  Lepidus 
was  set  aside,  and  Antonius  and  Octavius  divided  the  Roman 
world.  Soon  each  was  to  plot  for  the  other's  share.  The  East 
had  fallen  to  Antonius.  Immediately  afterward  he  became  in- 
fatuated with  the  licentious  Cleopatra,  in  Egypt,  until  he  lost 
care  even  for  his  military  fame,  and  sank  into  sensual  indo- 
lence broken  only  by  fitful  gleams  of  his  old  energy.  Octavius 
was  preparing  to  take  advantage  of  this  condition,  when  a 
pretext  was  made  ready  to  his  hand.  Antonius  bestowed  rich 
provinces  upon  Cleopatra,  and,  it  was  rumored,  planned  to 
supplant  Eome  by  Alexandria  as  chief  capital.  The  Roman 
senate  declared  war,  and  in  31  b.c.  the  naval  battle  of  Actium 
was  fought  off  the  west  coast  of  Greece.  It  was  the  third 
of  the  decisive  battles  in  the  establishment  of  the  empire ; 
and  like  Pharsalus  and  Philippi,  it  also  was  a  victory  for  the 
West  over  the  East. 


III.     OCTAVIUS  AUGUSTUS,  31  B.C.-14  A.D. 

456.  Final  Establishment  of  the  Empire.  —  Actium  made 
Octavius  sole  master  of  the  RomaD  world.  He  proceeded  to 
the  East  to  restore  order  and  to  annex  Egypt.  On  his  return 
to  Rome  in  29  b.c,  the  gates  of  the  Temple  of  Janus  were 
closed,  in  token  of  the  reign  of  peace.^  Prudent  and  generous 
measures  soon  brought  back  order  and  prosperity  to  distracted 
and  bankrupt  Italy  also,  and  in  27  b.c.  the  senate  conferred 
upon  Octavius  the  new  title  of  Augustus,  formerly  used  only 
for  the  gods.  Many  writers  date  the  beginning  of  the  formal 
Empire  from  this  event. 

In  his  earlier  career,  Octavius  had  proven  himself  able, 
adroit,  unscrupulous,  utterly  cold-blooded.  He  had  shrunk 
from  no  helpful  cruelty  and  had  been  moved  from  his  policy 
by  no  passion.  But  absolute  power,  which  so  often  drives 
smaller    intellects    to   frenzied   wickedness,    seems    to   have 


1  These  gates  were  always  open  in  war.    They  had  been  closed  only  once 
before  in  historical  times,  and  once  in  legend  by  King  Numa. 


§  456]  OCTAVIUS   AUGUSTUS,  31  B.C.-14  A.D.  385 

warmed  this  cold,  unlovely  schemer  into  something  akin  to 
true  greatness.^  After  the  final  victory  he  declared  a  general 
amnesty  and  took  up  the  work  of  the  great  Julius  in  something 


Augustus.  —  Vatican  Museum. 

of  his  spirit,  though  with  a  more  cautious  and  conservative 
temper.  The  remaining  forty  years  of  his  life  Augustus  gave 
to  unremitting  toil  in  reorganizing  politics  and  society,  laying 

1  Read  Capes'  Early  Empire,  6-9. 


386  FOUNDING  THE   ROMAN   EMPIRE.  [§456 

the  foundations  of  the  Empire  so  securely  that  even  his  death 
did  not  shake  them.  The  details  of  his  organization,  as  well 
as  the  glorious  literature  and  architecture  that  have  made  the 
Augustan  Age  splendid  in  human  annals,  will  be  treated  in 
the  next  chapter. 

For  Further  Reading.  —  For  Division  I.,  see  close  of  that  division. 
Division  II.  does  not  demand  extensive  reading.  The  student  with  leisure 
will  find  good  accounts  in  Merivale's  Triumvirates^  Pelham,  and  the 
opening  of  Capes'  Early  Empire  (Epochs).  At  this  stage  we  take  leave 
of  the  authors  who  have  so  far  been  our  chief  guides.  The  reading  for 
Division  III.  can  best  be  done  in  connection  with  the  next  chapter  (see 
bibliography  at  its  close). 

Special  Report.  —  Octavius'  reorganization  in  Italy  in  the  years 
29-27  B.C.,  with  special  reference  to  financial  measures. 

Exercise.  —  1.  Battles.  Add  to  previous  lists  the  following :  Phar- 
salia,  Thapsus,  Munda,  Philippi,  Actium. 

2.  Catchword  review  of  the  period  44  B.C.-27  a.d. 

3.  Review  the  theme  quotations  at  the  heads  of  chapters  through  the 
volume,  and  consider  their  bearing  upon  their  respective  periods. 


CHAPTER   II. 

THE  EMPIRE   OF  THE  FIRST   THREE   CENTURIES  — 
AUGUSTUS  TO  DIOCLETIAN. 

I.  TABLE   OF  EMPERORS. 

457-  Character  of  the  Treatment  of  this  Period.  —  With  the  age  of 
Augustus  the  history  of  the  Empire  ceases_to_be_ceiiteredJrLJLh£_iiit5_fl!f 
RprnR.  Nor  is  it  centered  even  in  the  emperors.  Many  interests  depend, 
of  course,  upon  the  individual  ruler,  but  the  greater  movements  go  on  in 
much  the  same  way,  no  matter  who  sits  upon  the  throne.  Our  study 
will  not  concern  itself  with  the  gossip  of  the  court  or  the  intrigues  of  the 
palace,  nor  can  we  profitably  follow  the  reigns  in  detail.  Our  interest 
for  the  next  three  centuries  lies  not  so  much  in  a  narrative  of  any  kind 
as  in  a  topical  survey  of  the  institutions  of  the  Empire,  upon  which,  in 
large  measure,  modern  society  rests. 

The  following  list  of  reigns  is  for  reference  in  connection  with  Divisions 
II.,  III.,  IV.,  and  V.  It  may  be  used  also,  with  the  books  open,  for  various 
instructive  questions  and  comparisons.  In  review,  prominent  facts  and 
names  may  be  memorized. 

A.     Two  Centuries  op  Order. 

458.   The  Julian  Caesars. 

1.  Augustus,  31  B.C.-14  A.D.:  fixed  the  constitution;  despotism  under 
republican  name  (§462  ff.);  fixed  the  frontier  (Teutoberg,  §  472); 
census  of  the  empire ;  "  golden  age  "  of  literature  ;  "  found  Rome  brick 
and  left  it  mar'ble  "  ;  hirth  of  Chj-ist,  4  b.c.  (§  631,  note). 

2.  Tiberius,  14-37  a.d.  :  taciturn,  suspicious,  degenerating  at  Rome  into 
a  gloomy  tyrant,  but  proverbial  among  the  provincials  for  scrupulous 
fairness  and  good  government ;  crucifixion  of  Christ. 

3.  Caligula,  37-41  a.d.:  a  capricious  madman  with  gleams  of  ferocious 
humor —  "  Would  that  the  Romans  had  all  one  neck  ! "  Assassinated 
by  his  guard. 

387 


388  EMPIRE   OF  FIRST  THREE   CENTURIES  A.D.       [§469 

4.  Claudius,  41-54  a.d.:  timid  pedant  controlled  by  vicious  favorites; 
citizenship  rapidly  extended ;  conquest  of  southern  Britain.*  ^ 

5.  Nero,  54-68  a.d.:  tiger-like  depravity  ;  able  ministers  (Seneca*);  half 
of  Rome  consumed  in  a  six  days'  tire  —  persecution  of  the  Christian^ 
in  the  city  on  charge  of  incendiarism. 

69  A.D.:  a  year  of  anarchy  and  civil  war  between  emperors  (Galba, 
Otho,  Vitellius,  Vespasian)  proclaimed  by  rival  legions. 

459.   The  Flavian  and  Antonine  Caesars. 

a.  The  Flavians. 

1.  Vespasian  (^Flavins  Vespasianus) ,  70-79  a.d.:  proclaimed  by  the 
legions  in  Syria;  grandson  of  a  Sabine  laborer;  a  rude  soldier,  who 
had  been  prominent  in  war  in  Britain  and  Judea  ;  economy  and  homely 
tastes ;  thrifty  government ;  destruction  of  Jerusalem  by  his  son  Titus* 

2.  Titus,  79-81  a.d.:  associated  in  the  government  by  his  father;  his 
exclamation  —  not<being  able  one  night  to  recall  that  he  had  made  any 
one  happy  —  "I  have  lost  a  day  !"  Destruction  of  Pompeii  by  the 
eruption  of  Vesuvius.*,^.  (Read  Bulwer's  novel.  Last  Bays  of  Pompeii.) 

3.  Domitian,  81-96  a.d.  :  brother  of  Titus  ;  became  tyrannical,  and  was 
assassinated  ;  Agricola  completed  conquest  of  Britain  * ;  Persecution 
of  the  Christians. 

b.  The  Antonines. 

1.  Nerva,  96-98  a.d.:  an  aged  senator  of  Spanish  descent;  elected  by 
the  senate,  and  accepted  by  the  soldiers. 

2.  Trajan,  98-117  a.d.  :  Spaniard,  adopted  by  Nerva;  extension  of  fron- 
tiers to  their  greatest  limits  (map,  and  §  474) ;  era  of  roads  and  build- 
ing ;  charitable  endowment  by  the  state  for  poor  children  *  (Capes' 
Antonines,  19-21)  ;  local  and  slight  persecution  of  Christians. 

3.  Hadrian,  117-138  a.d.  :  Spanish  relative,  adopted  by  Trajan  ;  extended 
citizenship ;  gave  Privy  Council  a  fixed  form  (§  463)  ;  wall  in  Britain 
against  the  northern  Picts.  a 

4.  Antoninus  Pius,  138-161  'a.d.  :  adopted  by  Hadrian ;  peaceful,  un- 
eventful rule  ("  Happy  is  the  people  whose  annals  are  meager  I ");  his 
characteristic  watchward  to  the  officer  of  the  guard  as  he  was  about 
to  die  —  Equanimity.  , 

His  son  wrote  of  him  :  "  He  was  ever  prudent  and  temperate.  .  .  . 
He  looked  to  his  duty  only,  and  not  to  the  opinion  of  men  .  .  .  nothing 
harsh,  nothing  excessive,  nothing  rude,  nothing  overdone." 

1  Special  reports  may  be  assigned  on  the  seven  topics  starred  in  §§  458-461. 


§461]  THE   EMPERORS.  389 

5.  Marcus  Aurelius  Antoninus,  161-180  a.d.  :  nephew  and  adopted  son  of 
Pius  ;  a  softened  and  noble  stoic  philosopher  ;  the  great  Asiatic  plague 
(§  513);  renewal  of  barbarian  attacks  (§  511);  persecution  of  Chris- 
tians; his  Thoughts  (§  503)  —  one  of  the  noblest  books  of  the  world. 

"To  come  to  the  aid  of  the  weak,  to  mitigate  the  lot  of  slaves,  to 
facilitate  manumission,  to  protect  wards,  were  the  objects  of  Marcus  as 
of  his  predecessor,"  — Bdrt. 

The  five  preceding  rulers  are  known  as  the  Good  Emperors.  Says  Meri- 
vale,  "The  blameless  career  of  these  illustrious  princes  has  furnished 
the  best  excuse  for  Caesarism  in  all  after  ages.'* 

6.  Commodus,  180-193  a.d.  :  son  of  Aurelius  ;  an  infamous  tyrant,  mur- 
dered by  his  officers. 

460.  General  Character  of  the  Government.  —  Thus  this  first  long 
period  of  two  hundred  and  twenty-four  years  is  an  age  of  settled  govern- 
ment and  regular  succession,  except  for  the  disorders  of  the  one  terrible 
year  69  a.d.,  at  the  close  of  Nero's  reign.  That  brief  anarchy  subdivides 
the  period  into  nearly  equal  parts.  The  Julian  emperors  {Eomans  and 
related  to  the  great  Julius)  covered  just  a  century.  After  the  three  Fla- 
vians (Italians)  came  the  six  Antonines,  who  also  covered  nearly  a  hun- 
dred years.  They  were  provincials.  The  election  of  Galba  by  the  Spanish 
legion  in  69  a.d.,  as  Tacitus  says,  "had  revealed  the  se/gret  that  emperors 
could  be  made  elsewhere  than  in  Rome."  The  majority  of  the  fourteen 
rulers  were  good  men  ;  nearly  all  were  capable  rulers  ;  the  few  tyrants  had 
short  reigns  after  their  evil  qualities  began  to  show. 

B.   A   Century   of   Disputed    Succession    between    Mili- 
tary  Adventurers. 

461.  The  ♦♦  Barrack  Emperors,"  193-284  a.d.      (See  §512.) 

193 :  Pertinax,  Julianus. 

Septimius  Severus,  193-211:  African  soldier;  persecutions  of  the  Chris- 
tians. 

Caracalla,  211-217:  tyrant;  made  all  free  inhabitants  of  the  empire 
Boman  citizens  ;  the  age  of  the  great  jurists  —  Ulpian,  etc. 

Macrinus,  217-218.  Elagabalus,  218-222.  Alexander  Severus,  222-235: 
a  prosperous  period  under  a  gentle  and  able  sovereign.  Maximus,  235- 
238.  Gordianus  I.  and  II.,  Pupienus,  Balbinus,  238.  Gordianus  III., 
238-244.     Philippus,  244-249. 

Decius,  249-251 :  died  in  battle  against  the  invading  Goths,  who  are  then 
bought  off ;  general  persecution  of  Christians, 


390  EMPIRE   OF  FIRST  THREE    CENTURIES  A.D.       [§462 

251-270:  Gallus,  Aemilianus,  Valerian,  Gallienus,  Claudius  II.  The 
eight  years  of  Gallienus  (260-268)  are  the  "  Age  of  the  Thirty  Tyrants," 
when  numerous  claimants  exercised  regal  power  in  sections  of  the 
empire. 

Aurelian,  270-275:  Illyrian  peasant  —  victorious  general;  persecution  of 
Christians;  new  city  wall  to  defend  Borne;  restored  the  frontier 
(abandoning  Dacia)  ;  conquered  Zenobia,  queen  of  Palmyra*  (Ware's 
novel,  Zenobia). 

275-284 :  Tacitus,  Florianus,  Probus,  Cams,  Carinus,  Numerianus. 


n.  THE   CONSTITUTION— TO  DIOCLETIAN,* 284  A.D. 
A.   Central  Government.^ 

462.  Republican  Forms  preserved. — In  27  b.c.  Octavius  (hence- 
forth to  be  known  as  Augustus)  resigned  his  dictatorship,  and 
declared  the  Republic  restored.  Augustus  himself  writes: 
"After  that  time  I  excelled  all  others  in  dignity,  but  of 
power  I  held  no  more  than  those  who  were  my  colleagues  in 
any  magistracy."  The  senate  of  course  at  once  gave  back  to 
him  his  more  imporitant  powers  in  different  ways,  but  the  forms 
of  the  old  constitution  were  respected  as  scrupulously  as  facts 
would  permit.  Succeeding  emperors  followed  this  policy  for 
three  centuries.  Augustus  carried  the  same  principle  into  his 
private  life.  He  refused  all  the  pomp  of  monarchy,  lived  more 
simply  than  many  a  noble,  and  walked  the  streets  like  any 
citizen,  charming  all  by  his  frank  courtesy.^ 

Oriie  senate  continued  to  exercise  much  real  power.  It  was 
no  longer  a  close  oligarchy.  It  became  a  chosen  body  of  dis- 
tinguished men  selected  by  the  emperor  from  the  whole  em- 

1  A  comprehensive  treatment  is  given  in  Bury's  Student's  Roman  Empire, 
12-38, 165-166,  509-515.  Excellent  discussions  also  in  Pelham,  399^12,  416^17, 
425-430,  446^148,  and  in  Capes'  Early  Empire,  11-19,  181-184,  and  Antonines, 
203-209;  see  Gibbon,  ch.  iii.,  for  the  Age  of  the  Antonines. 

3  Many  of  the  best  of  Augustus'  successors  imitated  him  in  this  also:  but 
Tiberius  gave  a  new  meaning  tg  the  law  of  Majestas,  so  that  thereafter  to 
slight  the  emperor  by  word  or  deed  might  be  regarded  as  treason  against 
the  state.    This  is  the  origin  of  the  law  of  treason  in  Europe  later. 


§463J  THE  CONSTITUTION  — TO   DIOCLETIAN.  391 

pire,  and  it  gave  powerful  expression  to  the  feeling  of  the  best 
classes  of  the  widespread  realm.  The  better  emperors  treated 
it  with  great  respect  and  encouraged  it  to  cooperate  in  govern- 
ment. Some  writers,  accordingly,  call  the  government  during 
these  three  centuries  a  Dyarchy  {joint-rule  of  emperor  and 
senate).  The  distinction  seems  needlessly  fanciful,  however. 
The  emperor  was  a  monarch  whenever  he  chose  to  assert  his 
sovereignty. 

The  Assembly  ceased  to  pass  laws,  but  for  some  time  it 
still  went  through  the  form  of  elections.  Augustus  did  not 
hesitate  to  canvass  personally  for  its  vote  for  himself  and  his 
nominees.  Later  rulers  often  nominated  only  one  man  for 
each  office,  leaving  not  even  the  appearance  of  a  choice.  Some 
elections  were  then  transferred  to-  the  senate,  and  about  the 
end  of  the  century  the  Assembly  faded  away. 

463.  The  Emperor's  Power.  —  But  even  under  Augustus,  the 
consuls  and  other  elected  officers  tended  more  and  more  to 
become  merely  municipal  in  function.  Alongside  the  old 
forms  there  grew  up  an  imperial  machinery,  centralized  in  one 
man  and  constituting  the  real  agency  of  government.  This 
machinery  was  partly  old  in  origin  and  partly  new.  As  with 
Caesar,  so  now,  a  number  of  the  more  important  offices  were 
concentrated  in  the  person  of  Octavius.  He  held  the  tribu- 
nician  and  proconsular  power  throughout  all  the  provinces  for 
life,  —  and  so  was  leader  of  the  city  and  master  of  the  legions. 
He  became  Pontifex  Maximus.  As  censor  he  could  appoint  or 
degrade  senators;  and  as  tribune,  or  with  the  new  title  of 
Princeps,  he  could  lead  the  debates  of  the  senate  and  so  con- 
trol the  senatus  consulta,  which  became  one  chief  means  of  law- 
making. The  remaining  legislation  emanated  from  him,  — 
directly,  in  edicts  (as  from  the  old  republican  magistrates  some- 
times), or  in  rescripts  (directions  to  his  officials),  or,  indirectly, 
through  the  great  jurists  he  appointed,  whose  interpretations 
of  doubtful  cases  came  to  be  a  source  of  law.  He  appointed 
the  governors  of  the  provinces  and  the  generals  of  the  legions, 


392  EMPIRE   OF  FIRST  THREE   CENTURIES  A.  D.       [§464 

the  new  city  prefect  (judge),  and  the  new  praetorian  prefect 
(commander  of  the  praetorians,  the  select  body  of  troops  in 
Rome),  and  he  called  together  at  will  his  chief  officers  and 
trusted  friends  as  a  Privy  Council  to  advise  and  assist  in 
carrying  on  the  administration.^ 

Octavius  also  retained  the  title  of  Imperator ;  and  this  term, 
with  the  title  Augustus  and  the  name  Caesar,  became  attached 
to  the  office  of  supreme  ruler,  so  that  each  successor  was  known 
as  an  Imperator  Caesar  Augustus. ^  The  name  and  many  forms 
of  the  Republic  survived,  but  they  served  only  to  cloak  thinly 
an  unqualified  despotism,  for  which  a  new  name  was  to  grow 
.from  the  ruler's  title  and  power  (imperator^  imperium). 

464.   The  Establishment  of  the  Empire  a  Gradual  Process.^ 

The  Empire  is  dated  sometimes  from  the  year  27  b.c.  (when 
Octavius  received  the  title  of  Augustus),  sometimes  from  31 
B.C.  (Actium),  sometimes  from  49  b.c.  (when  Julius  crossed 
the  Rubicon).  The  fact  is,  that  its  establishment  was  a  grad- 
ual process,  the  essence  of  which  was,  that  a  single  citizen  by 
special  commissions  united  in  himself  powers  that  were  originally 
intended  to  check  one  another. 

The  process  was  not  complete,  even  in  the  life  of  Augus- 
tus, for  the  practical  master  was  not  yet  the  acknowledged 
monarch ;  but  a  great  step  was  taken  when  on  Augustus'  death 
all  the  world  quietly  recognized  that  he  must  have  a  successor 
with  like  powers,  though  no  law  called  for  one.  Augustus, 
to  be  sure,  had  associated  his  stepson  Tiberius  in  the  govern- 
ment, and  so  had  pointed  him  out  for  the  succession.  Augustus 
had  held  his  powers  for  terms  of  years  periodically  renewed. 
The  senate  now  conferred  them  upon  Tiberius,  without  any 
reference  to  time.  Tiberius  indeed  did  intimate  at  his  election 
that  he  should  lay  down  his  power  as  soon  as  the  state  no 

lAt  first  this  body  was  irregular  and  its  work  intermittent;  Hadrian 
(§  459  6  3)  made  it  a  regular  part  of  the  governmeht,  with  fixed  form  and 
functions. 

2  The  survival  of  the  name  Caesar  as  an  imperial  title  iu  Kaiser  and  Tsar 
will  be  readily  recognized. 


§466]  THE  CONSTITUTION— TO  DIOCLETIAN.  393 

longer  needed  him;  but  no  one  took  him  seriously;  and  it 
soon  became  invariable  practice  to  confer  at  the  beginni-ng  of 
each  reign  all  the  imperial  powers  upon  the  new  ruler  for  life. 
Equally  significant  was  the  fact  that  at  Augustus'  death  the 
senate  decreed  him  divine  honors.  This  was  the  beginning  of 
the  authorized  worship  of  dead  emperors,  which  became  the 
characteristic  and  most  universal  religious  rite  of  the  follow-  . 
ing  centuries.^ 

465.  Nature  of  the  Succession.  —  The  weakest  point  in  the 
imperial  constitution  was  the  uncertainty  about  the  method  of 
succession.  In  theory,  just  as  the  early  republican  magistrates 
nominated  their  successors,  so  the  emperor  nominated  the 
ablest  man  in  his  dominions  to  the  senate  for  his  successor. 
But  this  principle  was  confused  from  the  first  by  family  claims, 
and  later  by  the  whims  of  the  legions.  The  monarchy  was 
neither  elective  nor  hereditary,  but  it  came  in  time  to  combine 
the  worst  evils  of  both  systems.  The  praetorian  guards  in 
Rome  had  to  be  conciliated  by  presents  from  each  new  ruler, 
and  two  centuries  later  the  throne  became  for  a  hundred  years 
the  prey  of  military  adventurers  (§§  461,  512,  515). 

Still,  despite  this  criticism, Hhe  student  of  history  must 
acknowledge  sadly  the  truth  of  Mommsen's  statement  regard- 
ing the  first  two  centuries  {Provinces,  I.  4)  :  "  Seldom  has  the 
government  of  so  large  a  part  of  the  world  been  conducted  for 
so  long  a  time  in  so  orderly  a  sequence." 

B.     Local  Administration". 

466.  Municipal  Government.^  —  Throughout  the  empire  great 
numbers  of  cities  enjoyed  a  real  self-government  for  local  con- 
cerns. The  magistrates  (consuls  or  duumviri,  aediles,  and 
quaestors)  were  elected  in  popular  assemblies  that  remained 

iRead  Capes,  Early  Empire,  41-44.  The  custom  was  in  accord  with  the 
universal  worship  of  ancestors  and  heroes  among  the  ancients,  and  not  so 
servilely  blasphemous  as  it  seems  at  first  to  us. 

2  Read  Capes,  Early  Empire,  193-198,  or  Arnold,  Roman  Provincial  Admire 
istration,  223-238. 


394  EMPIRE   OF   FIRST  THREE   CENTURIES   A.D.       [§466 

active  long  after  the  Assembly  at  Eome  had  passed  away.  The 
election  placards  posted  in  the  houses  of  Pompeii  (§  459  a  2) 
show  that  these  political  contests  wer^  real,  with  strong  popular 
excitement.  The  ex-magistrates  formed  a  town  council,  who 
voted  local  taxes,  expended  them  for  town  purposes,  and  in 
general  looked  after  town  matters.  Their  ordinances,  some- 
times at  least,  were  submitted  to  the  assembly  of  citizens  for 
approval.  Everything  indicates  the  persistence  of  intense 
local  patriotism  \  and  the  forms  of  these  municipal  institutions 
(§  336)  derived  from  the  old  Republic  and  organized  and  ex- 
tended to  the  provinces  by  the  Empire,  were  never  to  die  out 
in  Europe. 

It  is  true,  however,  that  under  the  Empire  the  real  independ- 
ence of  the  local  governments  was  gradually  sapped  by  the 
habit  of  referring  all  matters  to  the  provincial  governor,  and 
by  the  natural  tendency  of  strong  rulers  to  sweep  away  the 
irregularities  of  local  institutions  in  favor  of  symmetry  and 
greater  efficiency.  Oftentimes,  the  better  intentioned  the  ruler, 
the  stronger  this  evil  tendency.  Pliny  (§  494)  was  a  worthy  ser-. 
vant  of  a  noble  emperor ;  but  we  find  Pliny  writing  to  ask  Tra- 
jan whether  he  shall  allow  the  citizens  of  a  town  in  his  province 
of  Bithynia  to  repair  their  public  baths  as  they  desire,  or 
whether  he  shall  require  them  to  build  neiv  ones^  and  whether 
he  shall  not  interfere  to  compel  a  wiser  use  of  public  moneys 
lying  idle  in  another  town,  and  to  simplify  varieties  of  local 
politics  in  others.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  great 
Trajan,  wiser  than  his  minister,  gently  rebukes  this  over-zeal, 
and  will  have  no  wanton  meddling  with  matters  that  pertain 
to  established  rights  and  customs.  But  other  rulers  were  not 
so  far-sighted,  and  this  local  life  did  decline  before  the  spirit 


1  Read  the  correspondence,  or  at  least  the  excellent  extracts  in  Bury,  440- 
444,  or  in  Fling's  Studies,  No.  9.  Capes'  Antonines,  23-25,  gives  a  shorter 
extract.  This  Roman  centralization,  however,  is  matched  by  the  interference 
of  the  central  government  of  France  in  local  concerns  up  to  the  French 
Revolution ;  advanced  students  may  consult  Tocqueville's  France  be/ore  the 
Revolution. 


§468]  IMPERIAL   DEFENSE  — THE  ARMY.  395 

of  centralization  until  there  were  left  only  the  forms.  Happily, 
the  barbarians  came  before  the  forms,  too,  were  gone,  in  time 
to  fill  them  with  new  life  and  to  preserve  them  for  the  modern 
world. 

467.  The  Provinces.^  —  Above  the  towns  there  was  no  local 
se(/'-government.  The  administration  of  the  provinces  was 
regulated  along  the  lines  Julius  Caesar  had  marked  out.  The 
better  emperors  also  gave  earnest  study  to  provincial  needs; 
but  the  imperial  government,  however  paternal  and  kindly, 
was  despotic  and  absolute.  Provincial  assemblies,  it  is  true, 
were  called  together  sometimes  to  give  the  emperor  informa- 
tion or  advice.  These  assemblies  were  made  up  of  delegates 
from  the  various  towns  in  a  province,  and,  at  first  sight,  they 
have  the  look  of  representative  parliaments ;  but  they  never/ 
acquired  any  real  political  power.^ 

III.     IMPERIAL   DEFENSE. 
A.     The  Army. 

468.  Numbers.  —  The  standing  army  counted  thirty  legions ; 
the  auxiliaries  and  naval  forces  raised  the  total  of  troops,  at 
the  highest,  to  some  four  hundred  thousand.  They  were  sta- 
tioned almost  wholly  on  the  thr/ee  exposed  frontiers.  The 
inner  provinces,  as  a  rule,  needed  only  a  handful  of  soldiers 
for  police  purposes.  Twelve  hundred  sufficed  to  garrison  all 
Gaul.  ;'lt  is  a  curious  thought  that  the  civilized  Christian 
nations  which  now  fill  the  old  Roman  territory,  with  no  out- 
side barbarians  to  dread,  keep  always  under  arms  ten  or  twelve 
times  the  forces  of  the  Roman  emperors.  One  chief  cause  of 
the  Empire,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  been  the  need  for  more 
efficient  protection  of  the  frontiers.  This  need  the  Empire  met 
nobly  and  economically. 

1  Advanced  students  may  consult  Arnold's  Roman  Provincial  Admin- 
istration. 

2  Read  Arnold,  202. 


396 


EMPIRE   OF  FIRST  THREE   CENTURIES   A.D.        [§469 


469.  Sources.  —  The  recruits  were  drawn,  even  in  the  Early 
Empire,  from  the  provinces  rather  than  from  Italy ;  and  more 
and  more  the  armies  were  renewed  from  the  frontiers  where 
they  stood.  In  the  third  century  barbarian  mercenaries  were 
admitted  on  a  large  scale,  and  in  the  following  period  they 
came  to  make  the  chief  strength  of  the  legions. 


A  Gebmak  Bodyguard.  — A  detail  from  the  sculptured  relief  on  the  Column 
of  Marcus  Aurelius. 


470.  Industrial  and  Disciplinary  Uses.  —  The  Roman  legions 
were  not  withdrawn  wholly  from  productive  labor.  In  peace, 
besides  the  routine  of  camp  life,  they  w^ere  employed  upon  pub- 
lic works:  "they  raised  the  marvelous  Roman  roads  through 
hundreds  of  miles  of  swamp  and  forest;  they  spanned  great 
rivers  with  magnificent  bridges;  they  built  dikes  to  bar  out 
the  sea,  and  aqueducts  and  baths  to  increase  the  well-being  of 
frontier  cities."  In  the  absence  of  a  complex  industrial  system 
like  ours,  the  steady  discipline  of  the  legions  afforded  also  a 
moral  and  physical  training  for  which  there  were  fewer  sub- 
stitutes then  than  now.  At  the  expiration  of  their  twenty 
years  with  the  eagles,  the  veterans  became  full  Roman  citizens 
(no  matter  whence  they  had  been  recruited)  ;  they  were  com- 
monly settled  in  colonies,  with  grants  of  land,  and  became  valu- 
able members  of  the  community. 

The  legions  proved,  too,  a  noble  school  for  commanders. 


§472]  IMPERIAL   DEFENSE  — THE  FRONTIERS.  397 

Merit  was  carefully  promoted,  and  military  incompetence  dis- 
appeared. Great  generals  follow  one  another  in  endless  series, 
and  many  of  the  greatest  emperors  were  soldiers  who  had  risen 
from  the  ranks. 

B.    The  Frontiers. 

471.  The  Frontiers  as  Augustus  found  them.  —  Julius  Caesar 
left  the  empire  bounded  by  natural  barriers  on  three  sides  and 
on  part  of  the  fourth:  the  North  Sea  and  the  Rhine  on  the 
northwest,  the  Atlantic  on  the  west,  the  African  and  Arabian 
deserts  on  the  south,  Arabia  and  the  upper  Euphrates  on  the 
east,  and  the  Black  Sea  on  the  northeast. 

The  Euphrates  limit  was  not  ideally  satisfactory :  it  sur- 
rendered to  Oriental  states  half  the  empire  of  Alexander,  and 
let  the  great  Parthian  kingdom  border  dangerously  upon  the 
Roman  world.  Julius  seems  to  have  intended  a  sweeping 
change  on  this  side,  but  none  of  his  successors  (unless  it  were 
Trajan)  seriously  thought  of  one.  The  only  other  unsafe  line 
was  on  the  north,  in  Europe. 

472.  The  Frontiers  as  Augustus  corrected  them.  —  Augustus 
aimed  to  make  this  northern  line  secure.  He  easily  annexed 
the  lands  south  of  the  lower  Danube  ^modern  Servia  and  Bul- 
garia—  the  Roman  province  of  Moesia) ;  and,  after  many  years 
of  stubborn  warfare,  he  added  the  remaining  territory  between 
the  Danube  and  the  Alps  (the  provinces  of  Rhaetia,  Noricum, 
and  Pannonia).  The  colonizing  and  Romanizing  of  these  new 
districts  were  pressed  on  actively,  and  the  line  of  the  Danube 
was  firmly  secured.  - 

In  Germany,  Augustus  wished,  wisely,  to  move  the  frontier 
from  the  Rhine  to  the  Elbe.'  The  line  of  the  Danube  and  Elbe 
is  much  shorter  than  tliat  of  the  Danube  and  Rhine,  though  it 
guards  more  territory  (see  map) ;  and  it  could  have  been  more 
easily  defended,  because  the  critical  opening  between  the  upper 
courses  of  the  rivers  is  filled  by  the  great  natural  wall  of 
the  mountains  of  modern  Bohemia  and  Moravia.     But  here 


398  EMPIRE   OF  FIRST   THREE   CENTURIES  A.D.       [§  473 

Augustus  failed.  The  territory  between  the  Rhine  and  the 
Elbe  was  subdued,  it  is  true,  and  it  was  held  for  some  years  as 
a  province.  But  in  the  year  9  a.d.  the  Germans  rose  again 
under  the  noble  Hermann.^  Varus,  the  Roman  commander, 
was  entrapped  ii;  the  Teutoberg  Forest,  and  in  a  great  three- 
days'  battle  his  three  legions  were  utterly  annihilated.  The 
Roman  dominion  was  at  once  swept  back  to  the  Rhine.  This 
was  the  first  retreat  Rome  ever  made  from  territory  she  had 
once  occupied.  Roman  writers  recognized  the  serious  nature 
of  the  reverse.  Elorus  expressed  it,  "And  thus  from  this  dis- 
aster it  came  to  pass  that  that  empire  which  had  not  stayed  its 
march  at  the  shore  of  ocean  did  halt  at  the  banks  of  the 
Rhine."  The  aged  Augustus  was  broken  by  the  blow,  and  for 
days  moaned  repeatedly,  ''0  Varus,  Varus!  give  me  back  my 
legions  ! "  At  his  death,  five  years  later,  he  bequeathed  to  his 
successors  the  injunction  that  they  should  be  content  with  the 
empire  as  it  stood.  This  policy  was  adopted  perhaps  too 
readily.  Tiberius  did  send  expeditions  to  chastise  the  Ger- 
mans, and  Roman  armies  again  marched  victoriously  to  the 
Elbe ;  the  standards  of  the  lost  legions  were  recovered,  and  a 
Roman  commander  won  the  title  Germanicus ;  but  no  attempt 
was  made  to  restore  the  lost  Roman  province,  and  the  less 
satisfactory  Rhine  became  the  accepted  boundary  on  that  side 
of  the  empire. 

Still,  the  general  result  was  both  efficient  and  grand.  About 
the  civilized  world  was  drawn  a  broad  belt  of  stormy  waves 
and  desolate  sands,  and  at  its  weaker  gaps  —  on  the  Rhine,  the 
Danube,  the  Euphrates  —  stood  the  mighty,  sleepless  legions 
to  watch  and  ward. 

473.  Britain.  —  Claudius  unwisely  resumed  the  attempt  to 
conquer  Britain.  Perhap"^  if  the  work  could  have  been  carried 
to  completion  it  would  have  been  well  enough ;  but,  after  long 
and  costly  war,  the  Roman  power  reached  only  to  the  edge  of 
the  highlands  in  Scotland.     Thus  a  new  frontier  was  added  to 

1  Special  report;  read  Creasy's  Decisive  Battles,  ch.  v.,  for  the  struggle. 


§  475] 


IMPERIAL   DEFENCE.  — THE   FRONTIERS. 


399 


the  long  line  that  had  to  be  guarded  by  the  sword,  and  little 
strength  was  gained  to  the  empire. 

474.  The  Extreme  Limits,  and  the  First  Surrenders.  —  Trajan, 
with  more  provocation  than  that  which  had  lured  Claudius 
into  Britain,  adde^  Dacia  north  of  the  lower  Danube,  and 
Armenia,  Mesopotamia,  and  Assyria,  in  AsiS,.  The  two  latter 
were  at  once  abandoned  by  his  successor.  Dacia,  however, 
even  more  than  Britain,  became  Roman  in  speech,  culture,  and 
largely  in  blood;   and  though  its  military  protection  was  aban- 


Detail  from  Trajan's  Column  :   Trajan  sacrificing  a  bull  at  the 
bridge  over  the  Danube  just  built  by  his  soldiers.    Cf.  §  487. 

doned  by  Aurelian  in  the  weak  period  toward  the  close  of  the 
third  century  (§  461),  still  the  modern  Roumanians  there  claim 
to  be  Roman  in  race  as  well  as  in  name.  Britain  was  the  next 
province  to  be  given  up,  when  the  frontier  began  to  crumble  in 
earnest  in  the  next  great  period  of  decay  (§  591). 

475.  Frontier  Walls.  —  Since  the  attempt  had  failed  to  secure 
the  great  mountain  barrier  of  Bohemia  for  part  of  the  northern 
frontier,  Domitian  wisely  constructed  an  artificial  rampart  to 
join  the  upper  Danube  to  the  upper  Rhine^  This  great  fortifi- 
cation was  three  hundred  and  thirty-six  miles  in  length,  with 
frequent  forts  and  castles.      Better  known,  however,  is   the 


400  EMPIRE   OF  FIRST  THREE   CENTURIES  A.p.       [§  476 

similar  work  constructed  shortly  after  in  Britain,  called  Ha- 
drian's wall.  Its  purpose  was  to  help  shut  out  the  wild  Picts 
of  the  north.  It  extended  from  the  Tyne  to  the  Sol  way,  and 
considerable  remains  still  exist.  Under  Antoninus,  a  like  struc- 
ture was  made  farther  north,  just  at  the  foot  of  the  abrupt 
highlands,  from  the  Clyde  to  the  Forth. 

For  Further  Reading.  —  An  excellent  map  and  description  of  Ha- 
drian's wall  is  given  in  Bury's  Student's  Empire.,  502.  See  also  Gardiner's 
Students  History  of  England. 

On  Division  II.  in  general,  see,  especially,  Capes  and  Bury. 

IV.     SOCIETY   IN  THE   FIRST  TWO   CENTURIES.^ 

A.    Peace  and  Prosperity.^ 

476.  The  Good  Roman  Peace.  —  The  year  69  a.d.  (§  458)  is 
the  only  break  in  the  quiet  of  the  first  two  centuries  —  for  the 
revolts  of  Boadicea  in  Britain  (58  a.d.)  and  of  Hermann  are 
really  frontier  wars.  The  rebellion  of  Civilis  ^  on  the  Gallic  side 
of  the  Ehire  was  connected  with  the  disorders  of  the  year  69, 
and  the  national  rebellion  of  the  Jews  (§  459)  began  at  that 
same  time ;  and  both  these,  to  the  empire  at  large,  were  trivial 
disturbances.  Even  in  the  third  century,  when  the  legions 
were  incessantly  warring  among  themselves  in  behalf  of  their 
favorite  commanders,  vast  regions  of  the  empire  were  uninter- 
ested and  undisturbed.  All  in  all,  an  area  as  large  as  the 
United  States,  with  a  population  of  one  hundred  millions, 
rested  in  the  good  Koman  peace  for  nearly  four  hundred 
years.  Never,  before  or  since,  has  so  large  a  part  of  the 
world  known  such  unbroken  rest  from  the  horrors  and  waste 
of  war.  Few  troops  were  seen  within  the  empire,  and  "  the  dis- 
tant crash  of  arms  upon  the  Euphrates  or  the  Danube  scarcely 
disturbed  the  tranquillity  of  the  Mediterranean  lands." 


1  The  society  of  the  third  century  is  treated  in  Division  V. 

2  Besides  the  specific  references  in  the  text  below,  see  Gibbon,  ch.  ii. ;  Capes ; 
Freeman's  Flavian  Emperors,  in  Second  Series  of  Historical  Essays ;  Watson's 
Aurelius;  Thomas'  Roman  Life;  Pellison's  Roman  Life. 

•  Special  report. 


§478]         SOCIETY  IN  THE   FIRST  TWO   CENTURIES.  401 

477.  Good  Government,  even  by  Bad  Emperors.  —  The  Caesars 
at  Rome  were  often  weak  or  wicked,  but  their  follies  or 
crimes  were  felt  for  the  most  part  only  by  the  nobles  of  the 
capital.  The  imperial  system  became  so  strong  that,  save  in 
minor  details,  the  world  moved  along  the  same  lines  whether  a 
mad  Caligula  or  a  philanthropic  Aurelius  sat  upon  the  throne. 
Indeed,  some  of  the  most  notable  advances  in  government  were 
made  under  the  worst  men — a  Tiberius,  a  Nero,  or  a  Caracalla. 

"  To  the  Roman  city  the  Empire  was  political  death  ;  to  the  provinces 
it  was  the  beginning  of  new  life.  ...  It  was  not  without  good  reason 
that  the  provincials  raised  their  altars  to  more  than  one  prince  for  whom 
the  citizens,  also  not  without  good  reason,  sharpened  their  daggers."  — 
Freeman,  Chief  Periods^  69. 

"  It  was  in  no  mean  spirit  of  flattery  that  the  provincials  raised  statues 
and  altars  to  the  Emperors,  to  some  even  of  the  vilest  who  have  ever 
ruled.  .  .  .  The  people  knew  next  to  nothing  of  their  vices  and  follies, 
and  thought  of  them  chiefly  as  the  symbol  of  the  ruling  Providence  which 
throughout  the  civilized  world,  had  silenced  war  and  faction  and  secured 
the  blessings  of  prosperity  and  peace,  before  unknown." — Capes,  Early 
Empire^  202. 

478.  Prosperity  of  the  First  Two  Centuries.  —  The  reign  of 
the  Antonines  (§^59  h  4  and  5)  has  been  called  the  "  golden 
age  of  humanity.''  Gibbon  believed  that  a  man,  if  allowed  his 
choice,  would  prefer  to  have  lived  then  rather  than  at  any  other 
period  of  the  world's  history.     Mommsen  adds  his  authority:  — 

"  In  its  sphere,  — which  those  who  belonged  to  it  were  not  far  wrong 
in  regarding  as  the  world,  — the  Empire  fostered  the  peace  and  prosperity 
of  the  many  nations  united  under  its  sway  longer  and  more  completely 
•than  any  other  leading  power  has  ever  succeeded  in  doing.  .  .  .  And  if 
an  angel  of  the  Lord  were  to  strike  a  balance  whether  the  domain  ruled 
by  Severus  Antoninus  teas  governed  with  the  greater  intelligence  and 
greater  humanity  at  that  time  or  in  the  present  day,  whether  civiWkation 
and  national  prosperity  generally  have  since  that  time  advanced  or  retro- 
graded, it  is  very  doubtful  whether  the  decision  would  prove  in  favor  oj 
the  present^  —  Mommsen,  Provinces,  5. 

The  roads  were  safe ;  piracy  ceased  from  the  seas,  and  trade 
flourished  as  it  was  not  to  flourish  again  for  a  thousand  years. 


402  EMPIRE   OF  FIRST  THREE   CENTURIES  A.D.       [§479 

The  ports  were  crowded  with  shipping,  and  the  Mediterranean 
was  spread  with  happy  sails.  An  immense  traffic  flowed  cease- 
lessly between  Europe  and  Central  Asia  along  three  great  arter- 
ies r  one  in  the  north  by  the  Black  Sea  and  by  caravan  (along 
the  line  of  the  present  Russian  trans-Caspian  railway) ;  one  on 
the  south  by  Suez  and  the  Eed  Sea;  one  by  caravan  across 
Arabia,  where,  amid  the  sands,  arose  white-walled  Palmyra, 
Queen  of  the  Desert.^  From  frontier  to  frontier,  communica- 
tion was  safe  and  rapid.  The  grand  military  and  post  roads 
ran  in  great  trunk-lines  —  a  thousand  miles  at  a  stretch  — 
from  every  frontier  toward  the  central  heart  of  the  empire, 
with  a  dense  network  of  ramifications  in  every  province.  Guide 
books  described  routes  and  distances,  and  inns  abounded.  The 
imperial  couriers  that  hurried  along  the  great  highways  passed 
a  hundred  or  a  hundred  and  fifty  milestones  a  day;  and  private 
travel,  from  the  Thames  to  the  Euphrates,  was  swifter,  safer, 
and  more  comfortable  than  again  until  well  into  the  nineteenth 
century.  Everywhere  rude  stockaded  villages  changed  into 
stately  marts  of  trade,  huts  into  palaces,  footpaths  into  paved 
Roman  roads.  ^  Roman  irrigation  made  part  of  the  African 
desert  the  garden  of  the  world ;  ^  and  desolate  ruins  of  that 
prosperity  mock  the  traveler  of  to-day  from  the  drifting  sands.^ 
In  Gaul,  Caesar  found  no  real  towns  ;  in  the  third  century  that 
province  had  one  hundred  and  sixteen  flourishing  cities,  with 
their  baths,  temples,  amphitheaters,  works  of  art,  roads,  aque- 
ducts, and  schools  of  eloquence  and  rhetoric. 

479.  Forms  of  Industry.  —  It  is  difficult  to  re-create  an  image 
of  the  throbbing,  busy  life  of  the  empire.  Plainly  it  was  a 
city  life ;  equally  plain  it  is,  that  it  rested  on  agriculture  as 
the  chief  wealth-producing  industry.  We  are  to  think  of  a 
few  great  cities,  like  Rome,  Alexandria,  and  Antioch,  with 

1  On  trade  routes  to  China,  advanced  students  may  see  Bury's  Gibbon,  IV* 
Appendix,  p.  534  ff.  \ 

2  Under  French  rule  North  Africa,  in  the  last  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
began  to  recover  its  Roman  prosperity  after  a  lapse  of  fifteen  hundred  years. 


§480]  THE   WORLD   BECOMES  ROMAN.  403 

populations  varying  from  two  million  to  two  hundred  thou- 
sand, and  with  their  rabble  fed  by  the  state ;  and  then  of  the 
rest  of  the  empire  mapped  into  municipia,  —  each  a  farming 
district  with  a  town  for  its  core.  Within  the  town,  modern 
manufacturing  workswere  absent.  For  gentlemen  there  were 
the  occupations  of  law,  the  army,  teaching,  literature,  medi- 
cine, and  the  farming  of  large  estates.  Lower  classes  made 
the  merchants,  architects,  shopkeepers,  w^eavers,  fullers,  and 
artisans.  In  medicine  there  was  considerable  subdivision  of 
labor.  We  hear  of  dentists  and  of  specialists  for  the  eye  and 
for  the  ear.  The  shopkeepers  and  artisans  were  organized  in 
companies,  or  guilds.  Unskilled  manual  labor  in  country  and 
city  was  carried  on  by  slaves,  and  they  rendered  assistance 
also  in  many  higher  forms  of  work. 

B.     The  World  becomes  Koman. 

480.  Political  Unity.  —  Julius  Caesar  had  begun  the  rapid 
expansion  of  Roman  citizenship  beyond  Italy.  Through  his 
legislation  the  number  of  adult  males  with  the  franchise  rose 
from  some  nine  hundred  thousand  to  over  four  million.^ 
Augustus  was  more  cautious,  but  before  his  death  the  total 
reached  nearly  five  million.  This  represented  a  population 
of  some  twenty-five  million  people,  in  an  empire  of  nearly 
one  hundred  million,  including  slaves,  Claudius  made  the 
next  great  advance,  after  a  curious  debate  in  his  council,^  rais- 
ing the  total  of  adult  male  citizens  fit  for  military  service  to 
about  seven  millions.  Hadrian  completed  the  enfranchisement 
of  Gaul  and  Spain.  And  the  final  step  was  taken  by  Cara- 
calla  (212  a.d.),  who  made  all  free  inhabitants  of  the  empire 
full  citizens.  This  completed  the  process  of  political  absorp- 
tion that  began  when  the  Romans  and  Sabines  of  the  Palatine 
and  Quirinal  made  their  first  compact. 

1  This  is  the  increase  between  70  b.c.  (after  the  admission  of  the  Italians) 
and  .27  b.c.  The  greater  part  .of  the  growth  must  have  been  due  to  the 
reforms  of  Caesar.  2  Read  Tacitus,  Annals,  xi.  24r-25. 


404  EMPIRE   OF   FIRST  THREE   CENTURIES   A.D.        [§481 

By  the  time  of  Caracalla  the  franchise  was  no  longer  exer- 
cised, for  the  Eoman  Assembly  had  ceased  to  exist  except  as 
a  mob  gathering.  But  eligibility  to  office^  and  the  perfect 
equality  before  the  law  were  high  privileges. 

481.  A  Unity  in  Feeling,  as  well  as  in  Law.  —  By  its  gen- 
erous policy,  by  its  prosperity  and  good  government,  by  its 
uniform  law,  and  its  easy  intercommunication,  the  Empire  won 
spiritual  dominion  over  the  hearts  and  minds  of  men.  Rome 
molded  the  manifold  races  of  her  realms  into  one  —  not  by 
conscious  effort  or  by  violent  legislation,  but  through  their  own 
affectionate  choice.^  Gaul,  Briton,  Dacian,  African,  Greek, 
called  themselves  Romans.  They  really  became  so,  in  life, 
thought,  and  feeling.  They  were  so  in  speech  and  culture. 
The  East  kept  its  Greek  tongue  and  a  pride  in  its  earlier  civil- 
ization (§  391),  but  it,  too,  turned  from  the  glories  of  Miltiades 
and  Leonidas  for  what  seemed  the  higher  honor  of  the  Roman 
name;  and  East  and  West  alike  used  the  Roman  law  and 
Roman  political  institutions. 

This  union  was  not,  like  that  of  previous  empires,  one  of  ex- 
ternal force.  It  was  organic  —  in  the  inner  life  of  the  people. 
The  provincials  had  no  reason  to  feel  a  difference.  Erom  them 
now  came  the  men  of  letters  that  made  Roman  literature,  and 
the  grammarians  that  defined  the  Roman  language  (§§  491,  492, 
and  elsewhere) ;  they  furnished  the  emperors ;  in  their  cities 
arose  schools  of  rhetoric  that  taught  the  finer  use  of  Latin 
even  to  youth  born  by  the  Tiber.  The  poet  Claudian,  an 
Egyptian  Greek  of  the  fourth  century,  expressed  this  far- 
reaching  patriotism  in  noble  lines:  — 

1  Very  different  from  the  violent  measures  used  by  Russia  or  Germany  to- 
day to  nationalize  their  mixed  populations,  and  more  like  the  unconscious 
absorption  of  many  stocks  in  the  United  States.  The  Roman  army  as  a  means 
of  mixing  the  many  races  into  one  must  not  be  forgotten,  however ;  "Spanish 
legions  were  stationed  in  Switzerland,  Swiss  in  Britain,  Pannonians  in  Africa, 
Illyrians  in  Armenia."  They  settled  and  married  in  their  new  homes  and 
helped  to  prodace  a  race  unilorm  even  in  blood. 


§482]  THE  WORLD  BECOMES   ROMAN.  405 

'  "  Rome,  Rome  alone  has  found  the  spell  to  charm 

The  tribes  that  bowed  beneath  her  conquering  arm  ; 
Has  given  one  name  to  the  whole  human  race, 
And  clasped  and  sheltered  them  in  fond  embrace,  — 
Mother,  not  mistress  ;  called  her  foe  her  son  ; 
And  by  soft  ties  made  distant  countries  one. 
This  to  her  peaceful  scepter  all  men  owe,  — 
That  through  the  nations,  wheresoe'er  we  go 
Strangers,  we  find  a  fatherland.     Our  home 
We  change  at  will ;  we  count  it  sport  to  roam 
Through  distant  Thule,  or  with  sails  unfurled 
Seek  the  most  drear  recesses  of  the  world. 
Though  we  may  tread  Rhone's  or  Orontes'  shore, 
Yet  are  we  all  one  nation  evermore." 

And  says  George  Burton  Adams :  —  , 

"It  was  a  genuine  absoi-ption,  not  a  mere  contented  living  under  a 
foreign  government.  Local  dress,  religions,  manners,  family  names, 
language,  and  literature,  political  and  legal  institutions,  race  pride,  dis- 
appeared for  all  except  the  lowest  classes,  and  everything  became  really 
Roman,  so  that  neither  they  (the  new  Romans)  nor  the  Romans  by 
blood  ever  felt  in  any  way  the  difference  of  descent."  —  Civilization 
during  the  Middle  Ages,  23. 

482.  Consequent  Diffusion  of  Social  Life.  —  Life  did  not  re- 
main centralized  at  Kome  as  in  the  first  century.  To  condense 
a  passage  from  Freeman's  Impressions  of  Borne:  — 

"  Her  walls  were  no  longer  on  the  Tiber,  but  on  the  Danube,  the  Rhine, 
and  the  German  Ocean.  Instead  of  an  outpost  at  Janiculum,  her  fortresses 
were  at  York  and  Trier.  Many  of  the  emperors  after  the  first  century 
were  more  at  home  in  these  and  other  distant  cities  than  in  the  ancient 
capital,  which  they  visited  perhaps  only  two  or  three  times  in  a  reign  for 
some  solemn  pageant.  In  these  once  provincial  towns  the  pulse  of  Roman 
life  beat  more  strongly  than  in  Old  Rome  itself. ' ' 

Exercise. — Note  that  the  physical  conquests  of  Rome  were  chiefly 
made  under  the  Republic.  The  Empire  was  a  defensive  civilized  state, 
and  its  wars,  with  rare  exceptions,  were  not  for  conquest.  For  the  moral 
question  regarding  the  earlier  conquest,  cf .  §  43Z^ 

The  student  may  profitably  try  to  comprehend  intelligently  many 
questions  which  he  must  not  expect  to  answer.     Among  them,  at  this 


406  EMPIRE   OF  FIRST  THREE   CENTURIES  A.D.        [§483 

point :  Did  Roman  conquest  prevent  a  Gallic  or  Spanish  native  civiliza- 
tion ?  Was  the  education  that  Rome  gave  her  provinces  too  uniform,  so 
as  to  crush  originality  ?  Was  the  slower  absorption  of  the  same  culture 
later  by  the  Teutons  so  much  more  helpful  in  the  end  because  of  their 
method  of  obtaining  it  ? 

C.     Education  in  the  First  Three  Centuries.^ 

483.  The  Universities.  —  The  three  great  centers  of  learning 
were  ^oijie,  Alexandria,  and  Athetts.  In  these  cities  there 
were  universities,  as  we  should  call  them  now,  fully  organized, 
with  vast  libraries  and  numerous  professorships.  The  early- 
Ptolemies  in  Egypt  had  begun  such  foundations  at  Alexandria 
(§  258).  Augustus  followed  their  example  at  Athens,  from  his 
private  fortune.  Vespasian  first  paid  salaries  from  the  public 
treasury,  and  Marcus  Aurelius  began  the  practice  of  perma- 
nent state  endowments.  The  professors  had  the  rank  of  sena- 
tors, with  good  salaries  for  life  and  with  various  privileges  and 
exemptions.  At  Rome  there  were  ten  chairs  of  Latin  Gram- 
mar (language  and  literary  criticism) ;  ten  of  Greek ;  three  of 
Latin  Rhetoric,  which  commonly  included  law  and  politics  as 
applications;  three  of  Philosophy,  which  included  dialectics, 
or  logic ;  and  two  specially  of  Roman  Law.  These  represent 
the  three  chief  studies  (the  trivium)  —  language,  rhetoric,  and 
philosophy.  Besides  these  there  was  another  group  of  studies, 
mathematical  in  nature  —  music,  arithmetic,  geometry,  astron- 
omy (the  quadrivium).  Other  special  studies  clustered  about 
these.  Thus  law  was  a  specialty  at  Rome,  and  medicine  at 
Alexandria. 

484.  *  •  Grammar  Schools  "  in  the  Provinces,  and  Lower  Schools.  — 

Below  these  universities,  in  all  large  provincial  towns,  there 
were  "  grammar  schools,"  endowed  by  the  emperors  from  Ves- 
pasian's time,  corresponding  in  some  measure  to  advanced  high 

1  Cf .  Inge ;  Thomas ;  Capes ;  Bury ;  Dill,  399-428  (excellent)  ;  Kingsley's 
Alexandria  and  Her  Schools  (in  Historical  Lectures) ;  Laurie's  Rise  of  the 
Universities  (Lecture  I.  pp.  1-17). 


§484] 


EDUCATION. 


407 


schools  or  colleges.  Those  in  Gaul  and  Spain  were  espe- 
cially famous ;  in  particular,  the  ones  at  Massilia  (Marseilles), 
Autun,  Narbonne,  Lyons,  Bordeaux,  Toulouse.  The  reputa- 
tion of  their  instructors  drew  students  from  all  the  empire. 
The  walls  were  painted  with  maps,  dates,  lists  of  facts.     The 


WdUa  ofAurelian 
Old  WaUcfServiug 


1.  Coliseum. 

2.  Arch  of  Constantine. 

3.  Arch  of  Titus. 

4.  Via  Sacra. 

5.  "Via  Nova. 

G.  Vicus  Tuscus. 

7.  Vicus  Jugarius. 

8.  Arch  of   Septimlus    Sev- 

erus. 

9.  Clivus  Capitolinus. 


10.  Temple  of  Jupiter  Capi- 

tolinus. 

11.  Arch. 

12.  Column  of  Trajan. 

13.  Column  of  Antoninus. 

14.  Baths  of  Agrippa. 

15.  Pantheon. 

16.  Theater  of  Pompey. 

17.  Portico  of  Pompey. 

18.  Circus  Flaminius. 


19.  Theater  of  Marcellus. 

20.  Forum  Holitorium. 

21.  Forum  Boarium. 

22.  Mausoleum  of  Augustus 

23.  Mausoleum  of  Hadrian. 

24.  Baths  of  Constantine. 

25.  Baths  of  Diocletian. 

26.  Baths  of  Titus. 

27.  Baths  of  Caracalla. 

28.  Amphitheatrum  Cas- 

trense. 


408 


EMPIRE   OF   FIRST  THREE   CENTURIES   A.D. 


[§486 


masters  were  appointed  by  local  magistrates,  with  life  tenure 
and  good  pay.  Like  the  professors  in  the  universities,  they 
were  exempt  from  taxation  and  had  many  privileges  —  the 
origin  of  the  later  "benefit  of  clergy"  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
In  the  smaller  towns  were  numerous  schools  of  a  lower  grade. 
All  this  education  of  course  was  for  the  upper  and  middle 
classes,  and  for  occasional  bright  boys  from  the  lower  classes 
who  had  found  some  wealthy  patron;  and  it  could  do  little 
toward  dispelling  the  dense  ignorance  of  the  masses. 

D.    Architecture.^ 

486.   Characteristics.  —  Architecture   was  the   chief  Roman 
art.     With  the  Early  Empire  it  takes  on  its  distinctive  char- 


p 


BBBll  •  1)  e 


|j   llHWH    IwHIl    llilll! 


A  Section  of  the  Pantheon  as  at  Present. 


acter.     To  the  Greek  columns  it  adds  the  noble  Roman  arch, 
with   its  modification,  the  dome.     As  compared  with  ^reek 

1  Ferguson's  Ancient  and  Modern  Architecture ;  Inge,  ch.  v. ;  Thomas,  ch. 
iii. ;  Boissier's  Rome  and  Pompeii;  Dyer's  Pompeii;  Lanciani's  Ancient 
Rome  in  the  Light  of  Recent  Discoveries  and  The  Ruins  and  Excavations 
of  Ancient  Rome.  In  the  absence  of  such  works,  articles  on  architecture  in 
good  encyclopaedias  will  be  found  useful. 


§487] 


ARCHITECTURE. 


409 


architecture  it  has  more  massive  grandeur  and  is  more  ornate, 
besides  having  its  new  forms.  The  Romans  commonly  used 
the  rich  Corinthian  column  instead  of  the  more  chaste  and 
simple  Doric  or  Ionic. 

486.  The  Reign  of  Augustus  an  Age  of  Building.  —  With  good 
reason  Augustus  boasted  that  he  "  found  Rome  brick,  and  left 
it  marble."     Livy  calls  him  the  "  builder  of  ail  the  temples  in 


The  Coliseum  To-day. 


Rome."  In  fact,  he  himself  built  twelve  temples,  and  exten- 
sively repaired  eighty-two  more,  besides  constructing  numerous 
theaters  and  porticoes.  Roman  nobles  emulated  his  example, 
and  throughout  the  Empire  wealthy  citizens  began  to  do  the 
like  for  their  home  cities. 

487-  Famous  Buildings  and  Types.  —  The  most  famous  building  of 
the  Augustan  Age  is  the  Pantheon,  —  "shrine  of  all  saints  and  temple  of 


410  EMPIRE   OF  FIRST  THREE   CENTURIES  A.D.        [§487 

all  gods,"  —  built  by  the  minister  Agrippa  in  the  Campus  Martius.  It  is 
a  circular  structure,  one  hundred  and  thirty-two  feet  in  diameter  and  of 
the  same  height,  surmounted  by  a  majestic  dome  that  originally  flashed 
with  tiles  of  bronze.  The  interior  is  broadly  flooded  with  light  from  an 
aperture  in  the  dome  twenty-six  feet  in  diameter.  The  inside  walls  were 
formed  of  splendid  columns  of  yellow  marble,  with  gleaming  white  capi- 
tals, supporting  noble  arches,  upon  which  again  rested  more  pillars  and 
another  row  of  arches  —  up  to  the  base  of  the  dome.     Under  the  arches 


Arch  of  Constantine  To-day. 

in  pillared  recesses  stood  the  statues  of  the  gods  of  all  religions,  for  |his 
grand  temple  was  symbolic  of  the  grander  toleration  and  unity  of  the 
Roman  world.  Time  has  dealt  gently  with  it,  and  almost  alone  of  the 
buildings  of  its  day  it  has  lasted  to  ours.i 

The  Coliseum  ^  was  begun  by  Vespasian  and  finished  by  Domitian.     It 
is  a  vast  stone  amphitheater  (two  theaters,  face  to  face)  for  wild  beast 


1  Read  the  picture  in  Byron's  Childe  Harold,  canto  iv. 

2  Read  the  description  in  Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
bk.  i.  eh.  xii. 


488] 


ARCHITECTURE. 


411 


shows  and  games.  It  covers  six  acres,  and  the  walls  rise  one  hundred 
and  fifty  feet.  It  is  said  to  have  seated  eighty  thousand  spectators.  For 
centuries  in  the  Middle  Ages  its  ruins  were  used  as  a  quarry  for  the  pal- 
aces of  Roman  nobles,  but  its  huge  size  has      , 

prevented  its  destruction. 

A  favorite  modification  of  the  arch  was 
the  triumphal  arch,  adorned  with  sculptures 
and  covered  with  inscriptions,  spanning  a 
street,  as  if  it  were  a  city  gate.  Among  the 
more  famous  structures  of  this  kind  in  Rome 
were  the  arches  of  Titus,  Trajan,  Antoninus, 
and,  later,  of  Constantine. 

The  Romans  erected  also  splendid 
monumental  columns.  The  finest  surviv- 
ing example  is  Trajan's  Column^  one 
hundred  feet  high,  circled  with  spiral 
bands  of  sculpture,  containing  over  twenty- 
five  hundred  human  figures,  and  illustrat- 
ing Trajan's  Dacian  expedition. 

488.  Roman  Basilica  and  the  Later 
Christian  Architecture.  —  One  other 
structure  must  have  special  mention.  A  lit- 
tle before  the  Empire,  the  Romans  adopted 
the  Greek  basilica  i  and  soon  made  it  a 
favorite  form  of  public  building  for  the 
law  courts  of  the  praetor  and  for  the 
legal  business  connected  with  the  imperial 
palaces. 

The  general  plan  was  that  of  a  great 
oblong  hall,  its  length  some  two  times 
its  breadth,  with  a  circular  raised  apse  at 
the  end,  where  sat  the  numerous  judges  in 
concentric  curves.  The  hall  itself  was 
divided  by  two  long  rows  of  pillars  into  Trajan's  Column  To-day. 
three  parts  running  from  the  entrance  to 

the  apse  —  a  central  nave  and  two  smaller  aisles,  one  on  each  side.  Some- 
times there  were  double  rows  of  pillars,  making  two  aisles  on  each  side 


1  So  called  from  the  hall  at  Athens  where  the  basileus  archon  (king-archon) 
heard  cases  at  law  involving  religious  questions. 


412  EMPIRE   OF  THREE   FIRST  CENTURIES  A.D.       [§  488 

of  the  nave,  as  in  Trajan's  basilica.  The  nave  was  left  open  up  to  the 
lofty  roof,  but  above  the  side  aisles  there  were  galleries  shut  off  by  a 
parapet  wall,  which  supported  a  row  of  elevated  pillars.  These  galleries 
were  for  the  general  public. 


Aisle 


Nave 


Aisle 


Plan  of  a  Basilica. 


The  Christians  found  this  form  of  building  admirably  adapted  for  their 
worship.    After  the  conversion  of  the  Empire,  numerous  basilicae  were 


Interior  View  of  Trajan's  Basilica,  as  restored  by  Caniua. 


converted  directly  into  churches,  and  for  centuries  most  ecclesiastical 
buildings  followed  this  general  plan.  With  some  modifications,  it  grew 
into  the  plan  of  the  medieval  cathedral. 

Special  Reports.  —  The  Roman  house  ;  the  Roman  villa;  mosaic  pave- 
ments ;  excavations  at  Pompeii. 


490]  LITERATURE.  413 


E.   Literature.* 

Literature  plays  so  small  a  part  in  Roman  life  until  just  before  the  Em- 
pire, that  it  has  not  been  needful  to  mention  it  until  now.  To  grasp  the 
literary  conditions  under  the  Empire,  however,  it  is  desirable  to  survey  the 
whole  field. 

489.  Before  the  Age  of  Cicero.  —  Rome  had  no  literature  until  the 
middle  of  the  third  century  b.c.  Then  the  influence  of  her  conquest  of 
Magna  Graecia  began  to  be  felt.  Livius  Andronicus,  a  Greek  slave  from 
Tarentum,  introduced  the  drama  at  Rome  ;  but  his  plays  and  those  of  his 
successor  Naevius  were  mainly  translations  from  older  Greek  writers. 

Ennius,  also  from  Magna  Graecia,  comes  in  the  period  just  after  the 
Second  Punic  War.  ^  He  also  translated  Greek  dramas  to  amuse  the  Roman 
populace,  but  his  chief  work  was  an  epic  on  the  legendary  history  of  Rome. 

Comedy  was  represented  by  two  still  greater  names,  Plautus  (of  Um- 
brian  origin)  and  Tej^nce  (a  slave  from  Carthage),  Both  modeled  their 
plays  upon  those  of  the  Gre^  Menander  (§  255).  Plautus  (254-184  b.c.) 
is  lively  and  rollicking,  b^ik'^oss.  Terence  (a  generation  later)  is  more 
refined  and  elegant.  Twenty  plays  of  the  former  survive,  and  six  of  the 
latter. 

To  the  period  between  the  Second  and  Third  Punic  wars  belong  also 
the  Origines  of  Cato  (early  history  of  Rome)  and  his  writings  on  Agri- 
culture, an  earlier  history  by  Fabius  Pictor,  and  the  great  history  by  the 
Greek  Polybius,  all  of  whom  have  been  referred  to  before  in  this  volume. 

490.  The  First  Century  B.C.,  before  Augustus:  the  Age  of 
Cicero.  — The  chief  glory  of  this  period  is  Cicero  himself,  who  remains 
the  foremost  orator  of  Rome  and  the  master  of  Latin  prose  for  all  time. 
Two  great  poets  belong  to  the  period :  Lucretius  the  Epicurean,  a  Roman 
knight,  who,  though  didactic,  reaches  a  sublimity  never  attained  by  other 
Latin  poets; 2  and  Catullus  from  Cisalpine  Gaul,  whose  lyrics  are  unsur- 

1  Mackail,  Lati7i  Literature ;  Cruttwell,  Roman  Literature. 

2  Note  Mrs.  Browning's  characterization  in  the  Vision  of  Poets:  — 

"  Lucretius  nobler  than  his  mood ; 
Who  dropped  his  plummet  down  the  broad, 
Deep  Universe,  and  said  "No  God," 
Finding  no  bottom.    He  denied 
Divinely  the  Divine,  and  died 
Chief  poet  by  the  Tiber-side, 
By  grace  of  God  I  " 


414  EMPIRE  OF  FIRST  THREE  CENTURIES  A.D.       [§491 

passed  for  delicacy  and  beauty,  and  who  attacked  Caesar  with  scurrilous 
invective,  to  meet  only  gentle  forgiveness. 

History  is  represented  by  the  concise,  graphic,  lucid  narrative  of  Caesar^ 
the  picturesque  stories  of  Sallust  (who  is  our  chief  authority  for  the  con- 
spiracy  of  Catiline  and  the  Jugurthine  War),  and  by  the  inferior  work  of 
Nepos  and  Varro. 

491.  The  Augustan  Age.  —  Now  the  stream  broadens,  and  only  the 
more  important  writers  can  be  mentioned. 

Horace  (son  of  an  Apulian  f reedman)  wrote  the  most  graceful  of  Odes  and 
most  playful  of  Satires,  while  his  Epistles  combine  agreeably  the  per- 
fection of  serene  common  sense  with  beauty  of  expression. 

Vergil  (from  Cisalpine  Gaul)  is  probably  the  chief  Roman  poet.  He 
is  best  known  to  schoolboys  by  his  epic,  the  Aeneid,  but  critics  rank 
higher  his  Georgics  (an  exquisite  agricultural  poem).  In  the  Middle 
Ages  Vergil  was  regarded  as  the  greatest  of  poets,  and  Dante  was 
proud  to  acknowledge  him  for  a  master. 

Ovid  (Roman  knight)  has  for  his  chief  work  The  Metamorphoses,  a  mytho- 
logical poem.  Ovid's  last  years  were  spent  in  banishment  on  the  shores 
of  the  Black  Sea,  and  there  he  wrote  pathetic  verses  that  will  always 
keep  alive  a  gentle  memory  for  his  name. 

Livy  (of  Cisalpine  Gaul)  and  Dionysius  (an  Asiatic  Greek)  wrote  their 
great  histories  of  Rome  in  this  reign.  Diodorus  (a  Sicilian  Greek) 
wrote  the  first  general  history  of  the  world.  Greek  science  is  con- 
tinued by  Straho  of  Asia  Minor  (living  at  Alexandria),  who  produced 
a  systematic  geography  of  the  Roman  world.  He  speculated  on  the 
possibility  of  one  or  more  continents  in  the  unexplored  Atlantic  be- 
tween Europe  and  Asia.    The  last  three  wrote  in  Greeks  — 

In  the  same  first  century  a.d.,  a  little  later  than  Augustus,  we  have 
among  other  authors  the  following :  the  poets  Lucan  and  Martial  (famous 
for  his  satirical  wit),  both  Spaniards  ;  the  Jewish  historian  Josephus 
(writing  in  Greek) ;  the  scientist  Pliny  the  Elder  (of  Cisalpine  Gaul),  who 
perished  in  the  eruption  of  Vesuvius  in  his  scientific  zeal  to  observe  the 
phenomena ;  the  rhetorician  Quintilian  (a  Spaniard) ;  the  philosophers 
Epictetus  and  Seneca  (both  Stoics).  Seneca  was  a  Roman  noble  of 
Spanish  birth ;  Epictetus  was  a  slave  from  Phrygia ;  both  taught  a  lofty 
philosophy,  but  the  slave  was  the  nobler  both  in  teaching  and  in  life. 
Epictetus  wrote  in  Greek. 

492.  The  Second  Century.  —  Contemporary  society  is  charmingly 
illustrated  in  the  Letters  of  Pliny  the  Younger  (Cisalpine  Gaul),  and  is 
gracefully  satirized  in  the  Dialogues  of  Lucian  (Syrian  Greek). 


§493]  PAGAN  MORALS  AND  RELIGION.  415 

In  history  we  have :  — 

Appian  (Alexandrian  Greek) :  history  of  the  different  parts  of  the 
empire ;  wrote  in  Greek. 

Arrian  (Asiatic  Greek):  biographies  of  Alexander  and  his  successors; 
and  treatises  on  geography  ;  Arrian  wrote  in  Greek. 

Plutarch  (Boeotian):  author  of  the  famous  Lives  ("the  text-book  of 
heroism")  and  of  a  great  treatise  on  Morals  (in  Greek,  of  course). 

Suetonius  :  biographer  of  the  first  twelve  Caesars. 

Tacitus  (Roman  noble) :  author  of  the  Agricola,  the  Germania  (a  descrip- 
tion of  the  Germans),  the  Annals,  and  the  Histoiy.  The  last  two 
make  a  great  history  of  the  early  empire. 

Poetry  is  represented  chiefly  by  the  Satires  of  Juvenal  (Italian). 

Science  is  represented  by :  — 

Galen  (Asiatic  Greek) :  Greek  treatises  on  medicine. 

Ptolemy  (Egyptian):  astronomer  and  geographer;  wrote  in  Greek;  his 
work  was  the  authority  for  centuries  ;  taught  that  the  earth  was  round 
and  that  the  heavens  revolved  about  it  for  their  center. 

Pausanias  (Asiatic  Greek)  :  traveler  and  geographical  writer ;  wrote  in 
Greek. 

Philosophy  has  for  its  chief  representative :  — 

Marcus  Aiirelius,  the  emperor:  his  volume  of  Thoughts  is  marked  by  a 
gentle  humanity  and  by  a  deep  religious  feeling  ;  in  him  pagan  philoso- 
phy makes  its  nearest  approach  to  the  teaching  of  Christ  (§  503). 

The  Christian  religion  :  the  books  of  the  New  Testament  received  their 
present  form  in  Greek. 

Exercise.  —Note  the  significance  in  the  use  of  Greek  or  Latin  by  the 
authors  named  above  (and  of.  §  391). 

F.    Pagan  Morals  and  Religion.* 

493.  The  Dark  Side.  —  Many  causes  combine  to  blacken  the 
picture  of  the  morals  of  the  age.  Our  records  put  most  stress 
on  the  court  and  the  capital ;  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  in 
the  first  century,  and  even  in  part  of  the  second,  the  reality 

1  Specific  references  are  given  in  the  notes  below.  Further  reading  in  Inge, 
Thomas,  Lecky,  Capes'  Early  Empire,  chs.  xviii.  and  xix.  Advanced  stu- 
dents will  profit  from  Dill's  Roman  L\fe,  bk.  i.  cbs.  i.-iv. 


416  EMPIRE   OF  FIRST  THREE   CENTURIES  A.D.       [§  494 

there  was  dark  enougli ;  the  court  atmosphere  was  rank  with 
profligate  intrigue;  many  of  the  great  nobles  of  Italy  were 
sunk  in  coarse  orgies,  and  the  rabble  of  Rome  was  vicious 
with  the  offscourings  of  all  nations.  In  other  great  cities,  too, 
the  mob  was  ignorant,  wretched,  and  cruel.  The  gladiatorial 
games,  where  sometimes  thousands  of  men  fought  men  or  wild 
beasts  in  fantastic  combinations  to  amuse  spectators  by  their 
dying  agonies,  seem  to  us  a  blot  beyond  anything  else  in 
human  history.^  The  old  practice  of  exposing  infants,  to 
avoid  the  cost  of  rearing  them,  grew  among  the  lower  classes. 
The  old  family  discipline  had  gone.  The  terrible  frequency  of 
divorce  is  railed  at  by  the  satirists,  much  as  with  us  by  our  news- 
paper wits.     Slavery  cast  its  shadow  over  the  Eoman  world. 

494.  The  Danger  of  Exaggeration :  the  Brighter  Side.  —  Yet  it 
is  certain  that  a  picture  from  these  materials  alone  is  seriously 
misleading.  Standards  of  morals  were  shifting,  and  there  was 
much  confusion  and  corruption,  but  there  was  also  much  good. 
The  fresh,  unexhausted  populations  of  north  Italy,  and  of 
Gaul,  Spain,  and  Britain,  and  the  great  middle  class  over  all 
the  empire,  remained  essentially  virtuous.  Satirists  like  Juvenal 
or  moralists  like  Tacitus  are  no  more  to  be  accepted  absolutely 
than  racy  wits  and  scolding  preachers  for  our  own  day ;  and 
some  of  our  "historical  novels'^  drawn  from  such  s6urces, 
aside  from  their  execrable  taste  and  dubious  morality,  are 
grossly  unhistorical  in  spirit.*^  The  first  two  centuries  show  a 
steady  amelioration  in  morals,  even  if  we  look  only  to  pagan 
society.  The  Letters  of  Pliny  reveal,  even  in  court  circles,  a 
society  high-minded,  refined,  and  virtuous.  Pliny  himself  is 
well-nigh  a  type  of  the  finest  gentleman  of  to-day,  in  delicacy 
of  feeling,  sensitive  honor,  genial  and  thoughtful  courtesy.® 

1  For  an  excellent  treatment,  Lecky,  European  Morals,  I,  271-291. 

2  Read  Dill,  Roman  Society,  115-117,  for  a  wholesome  treatment  of  the 
danger  of  exaggeration  and  misinterpretation  in  this  field. 

«  Read  a  charming  essay,  A  Roman  Gentleman  under  the  Empire  (Pliny), 
by  Harriet  Walters  Preston,  in  The  Atlantic  for  June,  1886.  Thomas,  chs.  xi. 
and  xiy.,  and  Cai)es'  Antonines,  eh.  v.>  present  similar  pictures 


§495] 


PAGAN  MORALS  AND   RELIGION. 


417 


Marcus  Aurelius  and  Ms  father  (§  459)  illustrate  like  qualities 
on  the  throne;  Epictetus  shows  them  in  slavery.  All  these 
are  surrounded  by  friends  whom  they  think  good  and  happy 
people.  Indeed,  in 
a  close  survey,  over 
against  each  evil  we 
can  set  a  good.  Some 
distinct  lines  of  im- 
provement are  noted 
in  the  following  six 
sections. 

495.  Women  be- 
came free,^  the  equals 
of  men  in  law,  and 
companions  instead 
of  servants  in  the 
family.  If  the  con- 
fusion of  the  change 
brought  corruption 
in  some  circles,  it 
brought  nobler  virtue 
in  others.  A  higher 
view  of  marriage 
appeared  than  ever 
before  in  the  pagan 
world.  Plutarch  and 
Seneca,  for  the  first 

time  in  history,  insisted  that  men  in  all  relations  be  judged  by 
the  same  moral  standard  as  women ;  and  Eoman  law  adopted 
this  principle  in  the  decrees  of  Antoninus  and  the  maxims 
of  Ulpian  (§  512).  Plutarch's  precepts  on  marriage  "fall 
little  if  at  all  below  any  of  modern  days,"  and  his  own 
family  life  afforded  a  beautiful  ideal  of  domestic  happiness.^ 


Marcus  Aurelius  Antoninus.  —  A  bust  now 
in  the  Louvre. 


1  On  the  position  of  women,  read  Lecky,  European  Morals,  ch.  v. 

2  Lecky,  II.  289. 


418  EMPIRE  OF  FIRST  THREE  CENTURIES  A.D.       [§496 

Plutarch  urges  the  highest  intellectual   culture  for  women; 
and,  says  Lecky:  — 

"Intellectual  culture  was  much  diffused  among  them,  and  we  meet 
with  noble  instances  of  large  and  accomplished  minds  united  with  all  the 

gracefulness  of  intense 
womanhood  and  all  the 
fidelity  of  the  truest 
love.  .  .  .  The  story  of 
Brutus'  Portia  is  pre- 
served by  Shakspere, 
and  more  fully  in  Plu- 
tarch. The  wife  of 
Seneca  desired  to  die 
with  her  husband.  When 
Paetus,  a  noble  Roman, 
was  ordered  by  Nero  to 
put  himself  to  death,  his 
friends  knew  that  his 
wife  Arria,  with  her 
love  and  her  heroic 
fervor,  would  not  sur- 
vive him.  Her  son-in- 
law  tried  to  dissuade 
her  from  suicide  by  say- 
ing :  '  If  /  am  called 
upon  to  perish,  would 
you  wish  your  daughter 
to  die  with  me  ?  '  She 
answered,  '  Yes,  if  she 
has  then  lived  with  you 
as  long  and  happily  as 
I  with  Paetus.'  Paetus 
for  a  moment  hesitated 
to  strike  the  fatal  blow,  but  Arria,  taking  the  dagger,  plunged  it  deeply 
into  her  breast,  and  then,  dying,  handed  it  to  her  husband,  exclaiming, 
'  My  Paetus,  it  does  not  pain  I '  " 

496.  Charity.  —  Public  and  private  charity  abounded.  Homes 
for  poor  children  were  established.  Wealthy  men  loaned 
money  below  the  regular  rate  of  interest,  and  provided  free 
medicine  for  the  poor.     Tacitus  tells  how,  after  a  great  acci- 


Faustina  (wife  of  Marcus  Aurelius).  —  A  bust 
now  in  the  Louvre. 


§498]  PAGAN  MORALS  AND   RELIGION.  419 

dent  near  Rome,  the  rich  opened  their  houses  and  gave  their 
wealth  to  relieve  the  sufferers.     (See  also  §  459  h  2.) 

497.  Kindness  to  Animals.  —  Literature  for  the  first  time 
abounds  in  tender  interest  in  animal  life.  Cato  in  the  days  of 
the  "virtuous  Republic"  had  advised  selling  old  or  infirm 
slaves;  Plutarch  in  the  "degenerate  Empire"  could  never 
bring  himself  to  sell  an  ox  in  its  old  age.^  We  find  protests 
even  against  hunting;  and  severe  punishments  were  inflicted 
for  wanton  cruelty  to  animals.  There  seems  little  doubt  that 
animals  under  the  pagan  Empire  were  better  treated  than  in 
Southern  Europe  to-day.  The  gladiatorial  games  continued,  it 
is  true.  The  populace  could  not  be  deprived  of  them,  and 
even  the  gentle  ladies  of  fashionable  society  patronized  them. 
They  were  defended  by  arguments  like  those  used  for  bull- 
fights, bear  baiting,  cockfighting,  and  the  prize  ring,  in  later 
times ;  but  at  last  critics  began  to  be  heard,  as  never  in  repub- 
lican days,  and  Marcus  Aurelius  for  his  time  made  the 
combats  harmless  by  compelling  the  use  of  blunted  swords. 
Moreover,  strange  as  the  fact  is,  it  is  true  beyond  doubt  —  so 
strong  is  fashion  even  in  the  field  of  morals  —  that  the  passion 
for  these  inhuman  games  was  not  inconsistent  with  humanity 
in  other  respects. 

498.  Slavery  grew  milder. —  Emancipation  became  so  com- 
mon that  six  years  is  estimated  as  the  average  duration  of 
domestic  slavery.  The  horrible  story  of  Pollio,  a  Roman 
noble  who  threw  a  slave  alive  to  the  lampreys  in  a  fish  pond 
for  carelessly  breaking  a  precious  vessel,  is  often  given  as 
typica^.  It  belongs  in  any  case  to  the  very  beginning  of  the 
Empire,  while  there  was  yet  no  check  in  law  upon  a  master ; 
but  even  then,  Augustus,  by  a  stretch  of  humane  despotism, 
ordered  all  the  tableware  in  Pollio's  house  to  be  broken  and  his 
fish  ponds  to  be  filled  up.  Evidently  this  means  that  such  a 
master  was  socially  ostracised.     In  Nero's  time  a  special  judge 

1  Read  Lecky,  II.  165. 


420  EMPIRE   OF  FIRST  THREE   CENTURIES  A.D.       [§  499 

was  appointed  to  hear  slaves'  complaints  and  to  punish  cruel- 
ties to  them,  and  Seneca  tells  us  that  cruel  masters  were  jeered 
in  the  streets.  Law  began  to  protect  the  slave  directly  also 
by  imperial  edicts,  and  his  condition  steadily  improved.^ 

499.  Sympathies  Broadened.  —  The  philosophers  taught  the 
brotherhood  of  man ;  and  even  the  rabble  in  the  Koman  theater, 
we  are  told,  were  wont  to  applaud  the  line  of  Terence :  "  I  am 
a  man ;  no  calamity  that  can  affect  any  man  is  without  mean- 
ing to  me.''  The  age  prided  itself,  justly,  upon  its  enlightened 
humanity,  much  as  our  own  does.  Trajan  instructed  a  gover- 
nor not  to  act  upon  anonymous  accusations,  because  such  con- 
duct "  does  not  belong  to  our  age." 

500.  The  Gentler  Spirit  of  Imperial  Law.  —  The  result  of  this 
broader  humanity  not  only  showed  in  society  at  large,  but, 
more  important  to  us,  it  was  crystallized  in  the  Roman  law.^ 
The  harsh  law  of  the  Republic  became  humane.  Women  and 
children  shared  its  protection.  Torture  was  limited.  The 
rights  of  the  accused  were  better  recognized.  From  this  time 
dates  the  maxim,  ''  Better  to  let  the  guilty  escape  than  to  pun- 
ish the  innocent."  "  All  men  by  the  law  of  nature  are  equal," 
became  a  law  maxim  through  the  great  jurist  Ulpian  —  a 
phrase  that  was  to  work  political  revolutions  in  distant  ages. 
At  the  time  it  had  a  practical  consequence.  Slavery,  argued 
Ulpian,  existed  only  by  the  lower  artificial  law.  Hence  in  all 
unproven  cases,  the  benefit  of  the  doubt  was  given  to  the  man 
claimed  as  a  slave.^ 

501.  Scepticism  and  Religion.  —  The  masses  of  the  people 
remained,  as  always,  sincerely  devout.  The  upper  classes  were 
sceptical  scoffers  in  the  last  days  of  the  Republic,  and  Cicero 

1  Lecky,  I.  303-308. 

2  Read  Lecky,  I.  294-297,  and  Curteis,  17.  Hadley,  Roman  Law,  Lectures 
II.  and  IIL,  and  Gibbon,  ch.  xliv.,  give  longer  discussions. 

8  It  is  curious  to  remember  that  the  presumption  was  just  the  other  way  in 
nearly  all  Christian  countries  through  the  Middle  Ages,  and  in  the  United 
States  under  the  Fugitive  Slave  Laws  from  1793  to  the  Civil  War. 


§  503]  HIGHER  PAGAN  MORALITY.  421 

wondered  how  two  augurs  could  meet  without  laughing  in  each 
other's  faces.  This  tendency  continued  through  the  first  cen- 
tury A.D.,  but  seems  to  have  given  way  after  that  to  a  revival 
of  religious  feeling  and  to  a  more  devout  tone  in  philosophy. 

502.  The  Change  in  Moral  Standards  due  in  Part  to  Despotism. 

—  "  That  effeminacy  fell  upon  men  which  always  infects  them  when  they 
live  under  the  rule  of  an  all-powerful  soldiery.  But  with  effeminacy 
there  came  in  time  a  development  of  the  feminine  virtues.  Men  ceased 
to  be  adventurous,  patriotic,  just,  magnanimous;  but  in  exchange  they 
became  chaste,  tender-hearted,  loyal,  religious,  capable  of  infinite  endur- 
ance in  a  good  cause."  —  Seeley,  Boman  Imperialism^  33. 

G.    Extracts  to  show  the  Higher  Pagan  Morality. 

503.  From  the  Thoughts  of  Marcus  Aurelius :  — 

Aurelius  thanks  the  gods  "for  a  good  grandfather,  good  parents,  a 
good  sister,  good  teachers,  good  associates,  and  good  friends." 

"From  my  mother  I  learned  piety,  and  abstinence  not  only  from  evil 
deeds  but  from  evil  thoughts."  From  a  tutor  "...  not  to  credit 
miracle  workers  and  jugglers,  with  their  incantations  and  driving  away 
of  demons  ;  ...  to  read  carefully,  and  not  to  be  satisfied  with  a  super- 
ficial understanding  of  a  book." 

"There  are  briers  in  the  road  ?  Then  turn  aside  from  them,  but  do 
not  add,  '  Why  were  such  things  made  ? '  Thou  wilt  be  ridiculed  by  a 
man  who  is  acquainted  with  nature,  as  thou  wouldst  be  by  a  carpenter  or 
shoemaker  if  thou  didst  complain  that  there  were  shavings  and  cuttings 
in  his  shop." 

"  All  that  is  from  the  gods  is  full  of  providence." 

"  On  every  vexation  apply  this  principle  :  This  is  not  a  misfortune,  but 
to  bear  it  nobly  is  good  fortune." 

"The  best  way  to  avenge  thyself  is  not  to  become  like  the  wrong- 
doer." 

"When  thou  wishest  to  delight  thyself,  think  of  the  virtues  of  those 
who  live  with  thee." 

"Love  men;  revere  the  gods."  [Does  not  this  come  near* the  two 
commandments'  ?] 

"  As  emperor  I  am  a  Roman,  but  as  a  man  my  city  is  the  world." 

"  Think  of  thyself  as  a  member  of  the  great  human  body,  —  else  thou 
dost  not  love  men  from  thy  heart." 

"Suppose  that  men  curse  thee,  or  kill  thee  ...  if  a  man  stand  by  a 


422  EMPIRE   OF  FIRST  THREE   CENTURIES  A.D.       [§  504 

pure  spring  and  curse  it,  the  spring  does  not  cease  to  send  up  wholesome 
water." 

"To  say  all  in  a  word,  everything  which  belongs  to  the  body  is  a 
stream,  and  all  that  belongs  to  the  soul  is  a  dream  and  a  vapor  ;  life  is  a 
warfare  and  a  stranger's  sojourn,  and  after  fame  is  oblivion.  What  then 
is  there  about  which  we  ought  seriously  to  employ  ourselves  ?  This  one 
thing — just  thoughts  and  social  acts,  words  that  do  not  lie,  and  temper 
which  accepts  gladly  all  that  happens." 

"  Why  then  dost  thou  not  wait  in  tranquillity  for  thy  end,  whether  it 
be  extinction  or  removal  to  another  life  ?  And  until  that  time  comes, 
what  is  sufiBcient  ?  Why,  what  else  than  to  venerate  the  gods  and  bless 
them,  and  to  do  good  to  men,  and  to  practice  tolerance  and  self-restraint." 

"  Everything  harmonizes  with   me  which   is  harmonious  to  thee,  O 

Universe  !    Nothing  is  too  early  or  too  late  which  is  in  due  time  for  thee  I 

Everything  is  fruit  to  me  which  thy  seasons  bring,  O  Nature  1     From 

thee  are  all  things,  in  thee  are  all  things  ;  to  thee  all  things  return.    The 

'  poet  says,  Dear  city  of  Cecrops  ;  and  shall  not  I  say.  Dear  city  of  Zeus  ?  " 

"  Many  grains  of  frankincense  upon  the  same  altar ;  one  falls  before, 
another  after  ;  but  it  makes  no  difference." 

"  Pass  through  this  little  space  of  time  conformably  to  Nature,  and  end 
thy  journey  in  content  —  just  as  an  olive  falls  when  it  is  ripe,  blessing 
Nature  who  produced  it  and  thanking  the  tree  on  which  it  grew." 

*'  What  is  it  to  me  to  live  in  a  universe  if  devoid  of  gods.  But  in  truth 
gods  do  exist,  and  they  do  care  for  human  things,  and  they  have  put  the 
means  in  man's  power  to  enable  him  not  to  fall  into  real  evil." 

"  It  is  sweet  to  live  if  there  be  gods,  and  sad  to  die  if  there  be  none."  ^ 

^  604.  FromEpictetus:-.'. 

*'  He  is  unreasonable  who  is  grieved  at  things  which  happen  from  the 
necessity  of  nature." 

"Nothing  is  smaller  than  love  of  pleasure  and  love  of  gain  and  pride. 
Nothing  is  superior  to  magnanimity  and  gentleness  and  love  of  mankind 
and  beneficence." 

"  What  we  ought  not  to  do  we  should  not  even  think  of  doing." 

»'  No  man  is  free  who  is  not  master  of  himself." 

"Think  of  God  more  frequently  than  you  breathe." 

"Fortify  yourself  with  contentment,  for  this  is  an  impregnable 
fortress." 

"  If  you  wish  to  be  good,  first  believe  that  you  are  bad." 


1  Read  Watson's  Marcits  Aurelius,  or  Matthew  Arnold's,  in  Essays  in  Criti- 
cism, First  Series. 


§  505]  CHRISTIANITY.  423 

*'Do  not  so  much  be  ashamed  of  that  disgrace  which  proceeds  from 
men's  opinions  as  fly  from  that  which  comes  from  the  truth." 

"  No  man  who  loves  money  and  pleasure  and  fame,  also  loves  mankind, 
but  only  he  who  loves  virtue." 

"  If  you  wish  to  be  rich,  know  it  is  neither  a  good  thing  nor  in  your 
power  ;  if  you  wish  to  be  happy,  it  is  a  good  thing  and  in  your  power ; 
for  the  one  is  a  temporary  loan  of  fortune,  but  happiness  comes  from  the 
will." 

"  When  you  die  you  will  not  exist,  but  you  will  be  something  else  of 
which  the  world  has  need  ;  you  came  into  existence  not  when  you  chose, 
but  when  the  world  had  need  of  you." 

"To  me  all  significations  are  auspicious  if  I  choose;  for,  whatever 
results,  it  is  in  my  power  to  derive  benefit  from  it." 

"  It  is  not  possible  to  be  free  from  faults  ;  but  it  is  possible  to  direct 
your  efforts  incessantly  to  bring  faultlessness." 

"  Death  or  pain  is  not  formidable,  but  the  fear  of  pain  or  death."  > 

H.    Christianity. 

505.  Some  Inner  Sources  of  its  Power.  —  Meanwhile  a  new 
creative  force  had  arisen— Ahe  greatest  single  power  that  has 
ever  worked  upon  the  souls  of  men?-,  God  as  a  tender  father 
replaced  the  gods  demanding  worship  for  themselves  as  the 
price  of  holding  their  liands  from  afflicting  meii.  Confidence 
in  a  blissful  life  after  death  replaced  the  old  gloomy  and 
shadowy  future.  The  obligation  of  pure  and  helpful  living 
was  substituted  for  the  duty  of  minute  ceremonial.  Christi- 
anity made  hope,  love,  and  mutual  helpfulness  the  essence  of 
religion  for  the  masses  of  men,  and  it  replaced  the  lofty  but 
trembling  aspirations  of  the  noblest  philosophers  by  a  sure  and 
glowing  faith.  Individuals  in  the  pagan  world,  it  is  true,  like 
Plato  and  Aurelius,  held  opinions  regarding  God,  duty,  immor- 
tality, not  unlike  the  teachings  of  Christ ;  but  through  Christi- 
anity these  higher  doctrines,  "  which  the  noblest  intellects  of 
[pagan]  antiquity  could  barely  grasp,  have  become  the  truisms 
of  the  village  school,  the  proverbs  of  the  cottage  and  the  alley."  * 

1  Lecky,  European  Morals.  See  that  work  (II.  1-4)  on  the  relation  of 
pagan  speculation  and  teaching  to  Christian  faith ;  and  also  some  good  pages 
in  Matthew  Arnold's  Essays  in  Criticism,  First  Series,  345-348. 


424  EMPIRE  OF  FIRST  THREE  CENTURIES  A.D.       [§606 

506.  Debt  to  the  Roman  Empire.' — In  three  distinct  ways 
the  Empire  had  made  preparation  for  Christianity. 

The  gentler  humanizing  tendency  of  the  age,  and  the  change 
in  standard  of  morals,  made  easier  the  victory  of  Christianity, 
with  its  emphasis  on  humility  and  self-sacrifice.  The  debt  to 
the  political  organization  will  be  noted  later  (§  533).  Easiest 
of  all  to  trace  is  the  debt  to  Roman  imperial  unity.  Except 
for  the  widespread  rule  of  E;Ome,  Christianity  could  hardly 
have  reached  beyond  Judea.  The  early  Christian  writers 
recognized  this,  and  regarded  the  creation  of  the  Empire  as  a 
providential  preparation.  No  other  government  was  tolerant 
enough  to  permit  the  spread  of  such  novel  worship.^ The 
Empire  had  tolerated  broadly  the  religions  of  all  nations 
(except  those  believed  to  be  seriously  immoral),  and  so  melted 
down  sharp  local  prejudices,  v  The  political  and  social  unifica- 
tion of  the  Empire,  with  its  common  language  and  customs, 
laid  the  foundation  for  its  spiritual  union  in  Christianity. 
Says  Renan : — 

"  It  is  not  easy  to  imagine  how,  in  the  face  of  an  Asia  Minor,  a  Greece, 
an  Italy,  split  into  a  hundred  small  republics,  and  of  Gaul,  Spain,  Africa, 
Egypt,  in  possession  of  their  old  national  institutions,  the  apostles  could 
have  succeeded,  or  even  how  their  project  could  have  been  started." 

507.  The  Earlier  Persecutions.  —  The  Roman  Empire  encour- 
aged the  utmost  freedom  of  thought  upon  all  subjects.  Marcus 
Aurelius,  in  appointing  men  to  the  endowed  chairs  of  philoso- 
phy at  Rome,  seems  to  have  been  indifferent  as  to  their  agree- 
ment with  his  own  philosophical  beliefs.  Why,  then,  did 
Rome  persecute  the  early  Christians  ? 

To  understand  this  at  all,  it  is  best  to  treat  separately  the 
"  persecution  "  under  Nero,  and  the  persecutions  in  the  follow- 
ing century. 

We  know  from  the  Book  of  Acts  that  within  thirty  years 
after  the  death  of  Christ  his  disciples  were  to  be  found  in  all 
large  cities  of  the  eastern  part  of  the  Empire,  and  that  they 

1  Read  Fisher's  Beginnings  of  Christianity,  47-73. 


§  507]  CHRISTIANITY.  425 

had  appeared  in  Eome  itself.^  Tliey  were  still  confined,  how- 
ever, almost  wholly  to  the  lower  classes  of  society,  and  culti- 
vated Romans  heard  of  them  only  by  chance,  if  at  all,  and  as 
a  despised  sect  of  the  Jews.  The  Jews  themselves  accused 
the  Christians  of  all  crimes  and  impieties,  —  of  eating  young 
children  and  of  horrible  orgies  in  the  secret  love-feasts,  or 
communion  suppers.  The  accusation  was  accepted  carelessly, 
because  of  the  secrecy  of  the  Christian  meetings  and  the 
deplorable  tendencies  to  licentious  rites  in  various  eastern 
religions  which  Rome  had  been  compelled  to  check.  The  great 
fire  in  Rome,  64  a.d.  (§  458  5),  first  brought  the  Christians  to 
general  notice,  and  gave  occasion  for  the  first  important  men- 
tion of  them  by  a  pagan  historian.  The  origin  of  the  fire,  says 
Tacitus,  was  charged  [probably  by  the  Jews]  upon  the  new 
sect,  — 

"  Whom  the  vulgar  call  Christians,  and  who  were  already  branded 
with  deserved  infamy.  Christus,  from  whom  the  name  was  derived,  was 
executed  when  Tiberius  was  imperator,  by  Pontius  Pilate,  the  procurator 
in  Judea.  But  the  pernicious  superstition^  checked  for  the  time,  again 
broke  out,  not  only  in  its  first  home,  but  even  in  Rome,  the  meeting  place 
of  all  horrible  and  immoral  practices  from  all  parts  of  the  world." 

Tacitus  plainly  does  not  think  the  charge  of  incendiarism 
proven,  but  he  rather  approves  the  punishment  of  these 
"haters  of  the  human  raoe."  Nero  was  glad  to  satisfy  the 
rage  of  the  Roman  populace  by  sacrificing  such  victims,  and\ 
numbers  were  put  to  death  with  fiendish  tortures.  Some  were 
wrapped  in  skins  of  wild  beasts  to  be  torn  by  dogs;  others 
were  tarred  with  pitch  and  used  as  torches  to  illuminate  the 
revels  in  Nero's  gardens.  The  punishment,  however,  was  not 
in  name  or  fact  a  religious  persecution  proper,  and  it  was  of 
course  confined  to  the  city  of  Rome.^ 

Fifty  years   later,  Pliny  was  a  provincial  governor  under 

1  On  the  church  at  Rome,  see  Fisher's  Beginnings,  520-533;  Pennsylvania 
Reprints,  IV.  No.  1 ;  Farrar's  Darkness  and  Dawn  (a  novel). 

2  Ramsay,  ch.  xi. ;  Renan  in  the  Hihhert  Lectures,  1880,  Second  Lecture^ 
70-100;  Milman,  II.  35-39;  Hardy;  Fisher;  Capes;  Bury. 


426  EMPIRE   OF  FIRST  THREE   CENTURIES  A.D.       [§  508 

Trajan.  He  wrote  to  Eoine  for  instructions.  Many  persons 
in  his  province  were  accused  by  the  people,  sometimes  anony- 
mously, of  belonging  to  the  "  deplorable  superstition "  of  the 
Christians.  Such  men,  it  was  charged,  were  guilty  of  immoral 
practices,  and  also  brought  down  the  anger  of  the  gods  upon 
the  state  since  they  would  not  sacrifice  to  its  gods.  Pliny  had 
investigated  and  had  found  that  they  lived  pure,  simple  lives, 
but  that  they  refused  with  "  immovable  obstinacy  "  to  sacrifice 
to  the  Roman  gods.  This,  he  thought,  deserved  death,  and 
some  he  had  condemned ;  but  the  numbers  of  such  offenders 
were  so  great,  and  they  came  forward  so  readily,  that  he  was 
embarrassed.  Trajan  instructed  him  not  to  seek  them  out,  and 
not  to  receive  anonymous  accusations,  but  added  that  if  they 
were  brought  before  him  and  then  refused  to  sacrifice,  they 
must  be  punished.^ 

508.  Causes  of  the  Persecutions. — From  these  letters  two 
things  appear :  (a)  the  populace  hated  the  Christians  as  they 
did  not  hate  the  adherents  of  other  strange  religions,  and 
pressed  the  government  to  persecute  them  ;  (b)  the  best  rulers, 
though  deploring  the  bloodshed,  thought  it  proper  and  right  to 
punish  the  Christians  with  death. 

These  facts  can  be  partly  explained,  (a)  Rome  tolerated 
and  supported  all  religions,  but  she  expected  all  her  popula- 
tions also  to  tolerate  and  support  the  state  religion.  The 
Christians  alone  not  only  refused  to  do  so,  but  declared  war 
upon  it  as  sinful  and  idolatrous.  To  the  populace  this  seemed 
to  challenge  the  wrath  of  the  gods ;  and  to  enlightened  men  it 
seemed  to  indicate  at  least  a  treasonable  temper,  (b)  All  secret 
societies  were  feared  and  forbidden  by  the  Empire  on  political 
grounds.  The  Church  was  a  vast,  highly  organized,  widely 
diffused,  secret  society,  and  "  as  such,  was  not  only  distinctly 
illegal,  but  in  the  highest  degree  was  calculated  to  excite  the 
apprehension  of  the  government."      (c)  The  attitude  of  the 

1  Read  the  correspondence  in  Fling's  Stvdies,  140-143,  or  in  Bury,  446-448. 
See,  too,  Penmylvania  Reprints,  IV.  p.  10;  Ramsay,  196-225. 


§  509j  CHRISTIANITY.  427 

Christians  toward  society  added  to  their  unpopularity.  Miiny 
of  them  refused  on  religious  grounds  to  join  the  legions,  or  to 
fight,  if  conscripted.  This  again  seemed  a  dangerous  and  in- 
explicable treason,  inasmuch  as  a  prime  duty  of  the  Roman 
world  was  to  repel  barbarism.  Then  the  Christians  were 
unsocial ;  they  abstained  from  most  public  amusements,  and 
refused  to  illuminate  their  houses  or  garland  their  portals  in 
honor  of  national  triumphs. 

Thus  we  have  religious  and  social  motives  with  the  people, 
and  a  political  motive  with  statesmen.  It  follows  that  the 
periods  of  persecution  often  came  under  those  emperors  who 
had  the  highest  conception  of  duty. 

509.  A  Survey  of  the  Attitude  of  the  Government.  —  The  first 
century,  except  for  the  horrors  in  Kome  under  ^ero,  afforded 
no  persecution  until  its  very  close.-  In  95  a.d.  there  was  a  per- 
secution, not  very  severe  and  lasting  only  a  few  months. 
Under  Trajan  we  see  spasmodic  local  persecutions  arising 
from  popular  hatred,  but  not  instigated  by  the  government. 
Hadrian  and  Antoninus  Pius  strove  to  repress  popular  out- 
breaks against  the  Christians.  Aurelius,  in  the  latter  part  of 
his  reign,  permitted  a  persecution.  On  the  whole,  the  second 
century  was  a  time  when  the  Christians  were  theoretically  out- 
lawed, but  when  there  were  only  a  few  enforcements  of  the  law 
against  them,  and  those  local.^ 

The  third  century  was  an  age  of  threatened  anarchy  in  gov- 
ernment, ^nd,  as  we  shall  see,  of  decline  in  prosperity.  The 
few  able  rulers  strove  strenuously  to  restore  society,  and  this 
century  accordingly  was  an  age  of  definitely  planned,  imperial 
persecution.  Says  George  Burton  Adams :  "  There  was  really 
no  alternative  for  men  like  Decius,  and  Valerian,  and  Diocletian. 
Christianity  was  a  vast  organized  defiance  of  law."  No  resto- 
ration of  earlier  Roman  conditions,  such  as  the  reformers  hoped 
for,  could  be  possible  unless  this  sect  was  overcome.     But  by 

1  On  the  slight  nature  of  the  persecution  before  Decius,  249  a.d.,  see  Lecky, 
I.  443^45;  Curteis,  Roman  Empire,  20-30. 


428  EMPIRE   OF  FIRST  THREE   CENTURIES  A.D.        [§  510 

this  time  Christianity  was  too  strong.  It  had  come  to  count 
nobles  and  rulers  in  its  ranks.  At  the  opening  of  the  fourth 
century  a.d.,  the  keen  Constantine  saw  the  advantage  to  be 
gained  by  enlisting  this  force  upon  his  side  in  the  civil  wars, 
and  the  era  of  persecution  by  the  pagans  ceased  forever. 

510.  Summary —  (a)  The  persecution  of  the  Church  by  the 
best  emperors  becomes  explicable.  (6)  It  was  not  of  such  a 
character  as  to  seriously  endanger  a  vital  faith,  (c)  It  did 
give  rise  to  multitudes  of  heroic  martyrdoms  of  strong  men 
and  weak  maidens,  which  make  a  glorious  page  in  human  his- 
tory, and  which  by  their  effect  upon  contemporaries  justify 
the  saying,  "The  blood  of  the  martyrs  is  the  seed  of  the 
church."^  (d)  The  moral  results  of  Christianity  were  so  far 
most  apparent  in  the  social  life  of  the  lower  classes  in  the 
cities.  The  effect  upon  legislation  and  government  was  to 
begin  in  the  fourth  century  a.d. 

For  Further  Reading  on  the  Persecutions.  —  There  are  a  few 
excellent  pages  on  the  persecution  by  good  emperors  in  Matthew  Arnold's 
Essays  in  Criticism,  First  Series  (essay  on  Marcus  Aurelius),  359-363. 
The  causes  and  extent  of  persecution  are  summarized  in  Ramsay, 
oh.  XV.  ;  chs.  x.-xiv.  give  its  history  in  the  first  two  centuries.  The 
attitude  of  the  imperial  government  is  discussed  in  Watson's  Aurelius, 
eh.  vii.  ;  Capes'  Antonines,  ch.  vi. ;  Carr,  ch.  ii. ;  Ulhorn,  282-297.  A 
lengthy  treatment  will  be  found  in  Milman,  bk.  ii.  ch.  ix. ,  and  in  Lecky, 
I.  398-468.  A  valuable  brief  statement  in  Curteis'  Boman  Empire,  20-30. 
See  also  Church's  To  the  Lions  and  Newman's  Callista  (novels). 


Ll||Ch 

TH 


E  THIRD  CENTURY— GENERAL  DECLINE.^ 

511.  Renewal  of  Barbarian  Attacks. — For  two  centuries  the 
task  of  the  legions  had  been  comparatively  easy,  but  in  the 
reign  of  the  peaceful  Marcus  Aurelius  the  torrent  of  barbarian 

1  Special  report :  stories  of  famous  early  martyrs ;  the  persecutions  of 
Decius  and  of  Diocletian. 

2  Most  of  the  preceding  topics  in  this  chapter  have  been  treated  only  to 
about  200  A.D.  In  some  cases  —  imperial  organization,  lists  of  emperors, 
and  Christianityi— it  was  more  convenient  to  cover  the  three  centuries. 


§512]  THIRD   CENTURY— GENERAL  DECLINE.  429 

invasion  began  to  beat  again  upon  the  ramparts  of  civilization. 
The  Moorish  tribes  were  on  the  move  in  Africa ;  the  Parthians, 
whom  Trajan  had  humbled,  again  menaced  the  Euphrates; 
and  Tartars,  Slavs,  Finns,  and  Germans  burst  upon  the  Danube. 
Aurelius  gave  the  years  of  his  reign  to  campaigns  on  the 
frontier.^  For  the  time,  indeed,  Rome  beat  off  the  attack ;  but 
from  this  date  she  stood  always  on  the  defensive,  with  exhaust- 
less  swarms  of  fresh  enemies  ever  surging  about  her  defenses ; 
and  after  the  great  and  prosperous  reigns  of  Septimius  and 
Alexander  Severus  (§  461)  they  began  to  burst  through  for 
destructive  raids.  Early  in  the  third  century  the  Parthian 
Empire  dissolved,  only  to  give  way  to  a  more  formidable  renewed 
Persian  kingdom  under  the  Sassanidae  kings.  This  power  for 
a  time  seemed  the  great  danger.  In  250  and  260  a.d.,  the 
Persians  poured  across  the  Euphrates.  The  emperor  Valerian 
was  defeated  and  taken  prisoner,  and  Antioch  was  captured. 
New  German  tribes,  too,  —  the  mightier  foe,  as  events  were  to 
prove,  —  had  appeared  on  the  European  frontier :  the  Alemanni 
crossed  the  Rhine  and  maintained  themselves  in  Gaul  for  two 
years  (236-238  a.d.)  ;  in  the  disorders  of  the  fifties,  bands  of 
Franks  swept  over  Gaul  and  Spain;  the  GotJis  seized  the 
province  of  Dacia,  and  raided  the  eastern  European  provinces. 
In  the  sixties,  Gothic  fleets,  of  five  hundred  sail,  issuing 
from  the  Black  Sea,  ravaged  the  Mediterranean  coasts,  sack- 
ing Athens,  Corinth,  Arg\)s,  and  Sparta.  Claudius  II.  and 
Aurelian,  however,  restored  the  old  frontiers,  except  for  Dacia, 
and  chastised  the  barbarians  on  all  sides,  and  the  worst  of  this 
evil  was  confined  to  the  middle  third  of  the  century ;  ^  but  a 
fatal  blow  had  been  struck  at  the  prestige  of  Rome. 

512.  Political  Decline.  — The  "barrack  emperors  of  the  third 
century "  (§  461)  is  the  general   name  given  by  Hodgkin  to 

1  Chapters  of  the  Thoughts  were  composed,  as  the  date  lines  show,  in  camp 
in  the  mountains  of  Bohemia  or  Moravia  against  the  Marcomanni  (Markraen) 
and  Quadi. 

2  Read  a  few  pages  in  Hodgkin,  I.  44r-71. 


430  EMPIRE   OF  FIRST  THREE   CENTURIES  A.D.       [§  513 

the  twenty-five  rulers  of  this  ninety  years  from  Commodus  to 
Diocletian.  They  were  set  up  by  the  army,  and  all  but  four 
died  by  revolt  (two  of  these  four  in  war  against  Goths  and 
Persians).  The  imperial  power  had  become  the  sport  and 
spoil  of  the  legions,  except  for  brief  intervals  when  some 
strong  ruler  chanced  to  grasp  the  scepter.  Sometimes  the 
throne  was  actually  auctioned  to  the  highest  bidder.  In  the 
sixties  the  Empire  seemed  to  have  split  finally  into  petty 
fragments.  But  the  age  proved  finally  to  have  been  only  one 
of  transition ;  in  the  next  century,  as  we  shall  see,  Diocletian 
and  Constantine  were  to  remove  the  causes  of  internal  dis- 
order and  to  introduce  another  long  period  of  political  calm. 

513.   Decline  of  Population  and  of  Material  Prosperity.  —  By 

the  irony  of  fate,  the  reign  of  the  best  of  emperors  marks  also 
another  great  calamity.  In  the  year  166  a  new  Asiatic  plague 
swept  from  the  Euphrates  to  the  Atlantic,  carrying  off,  we  are 
told,  half  the  population. 

From  Aurelius  to  Aurelian,  at  brief  intervals,  the  pestilence 
returned,  to  leave  wide  regions  desolate  and  to  demoralize  in- 
dustry and  society.  Those  who  recovered  from  the  disease 
often  showed  a  weakened  energy,  and  the  vitality  of  the  Em- 
pire was  fatally  lowered.  It  takes  vigorous,  young  societies 
a  long  time  to  recover  from  a  single  blow  of  this  kind;^  to 
the  Roman  Empire,  the  disaster  was  the  more  deadly  because 
population  had  already  become  stationary,  if  it  was  not  even 
on  the  decline. 

The  reasons  for  this  are  not  altogether  clear.  The  wide- 
spread slave  system  was  no  doubt  one  cause.  The  high  stand- 
ard of  comfort,  and  consequent  dislike  for  large  families,  as 
in  modern  France,  was  another.  But  these  seem  insufficient. 
It  is  hardly  possible  to  charge  the  evil  to  immorality  on  a 
large  scale,  since  the  victory  of  Christianity  does  not  seem  to 
have  checked  it.    Whatever  the  cause,  the  fact  is  beyond  ques- 

1  It  is  said  to  have  taken  a  century  for  England  to  recover  from  the  effects 
of  the  Black  Death  in  the  fourteenth  century. 


§515]  THIRD   CENTURY  — GENERAL  DECLINE.  431 

tion ;  and  so  the  gaps  left  by  the  pestilence  remained  unfilled. 
The  fatal  disease  of  the  later  Empire  was  want  of  men.* 

514.  Decay  in  Literature.  —  Great  names  in  po^ry,  history, 
and  science  cease.  Literature  is  no  longer  creative.  Philosophy 
and  theology  become  a  dreary  waste  of  controversy.  We  have 
multitudes  of  "  Apologies "  for  Christianity  from  the  Church 
Fathers  (Lactantius,  TertuUian,  and  Origen  —  all  in  Africa), 
and  volume  upon  volume  against  them  from  the  New  Platon- 
ists,  like  Plotinus  and  his  disciple  Porphyi'y  (Asiatics).  Works 
on  Christian  doctrine  and  practice  were  written  also  by  St. 
Clement  (Alexandria)  and  St.  Cyprian  (Carthage). 

The  one  advance  is  in  Roman  law  (§  500).  This  is  the  age 
of  the  great  jurists,  of  whom  Ulpian  is  the  most  famous. 

515.  General  Summary — At  the  same  time,  the  century  had 
many  bright  spots;  and  indeed  the  first  third  was,  on  the 
whole,  one  of  the  happy  periods  in  human  history.  The  gentle 
Alexander  Severus  in  particular  restored  the  glories  of  the  age 
of  the  Antonines.2  But  after  his  murder  by  the  rebellious 
legions,  for  the  second  third  of  the  century,  society  as  well  as 
government  seemed  on  the  point  of  dissolution,  as  in  the  first 
century  B.C.  The  soldier-emperor  Aurelian  (270-275  a.d.)  re- 
stored order  while  his  strong  hand  held  authority,  and,  ten 
years  later,  Diocletian  began  the  reforms  that  were  to  save 
society  for  two  hundred  years  more. 


References  for  the  Empire  of  the  first  three  centuries.  —  Sources: 
Augustus'  Monumentum  Ancyranum  ("The  Deeds  of  Augustus")  is 
important  for  the  reign  of  the  first  emperor;  it  is  a  long  inscription, 
composed  by  Augustus,  found  on  the  walls  of  a  temple  in  Ancyra  ;  a  trans- 
lation is  given  in  Pennsylvania  Beprints,  V.  Tacitus  covers  the  early 
period.     Suetonius  gives  us  the  Lives  of  the  first  twelve  Caesars. 

Modern  Authorities.  —  General  survey  :  Capes'  Early  Empire  and 
The  Age  of  the  Antonines  (Epochs)  and  Bury's  Human  Empire  (Student's 

1  Read  Seeley's  Roman  Imperialism,  53-^)4. 

2  Special  report ;  see  Gibbon,  in  particular. 


432  EMPIRE   OF  FIRST  THREE   CENTURIES  A.D.        [§515 

Series),  to  180  a.d.,  fill  the  period  between  Mommsen  and  Gibbon.  Gib- 
bon (chs.  iv.-xii.)  remains  the  great  guide  for  the  third  century. 
Pelham  covers  the  whole  period  in  brief.  Merivale's  seven  volumes  on 
The  Bomans  under  the  Empire  may  be  consulted  ;  vols,  iii.-vii.  cover  the 
ground  from  Mommsen  to  Gibbon.  The  third  century  is  not  attractive, 
and  writers  on  the  Early  Empire  show  a  disposition  to  stop  with  the 
Antonines,  while  treatments  of  the  later  period  usually  begin  with  Dio- 
cletian. Hodgkin,  I.  5-16,  has  an  excellent  summary  from  Augustus  to 
Diocletian. 

On  society :  Inge,  Society  in  Borne ;  Lecky,  European  Morals,  chs. 
ii.  iii.  (for  advanced  students)  ;  Thomas,  Boman  Life. 

On  Christianity :  All  the  authorities  above  and  those  given  at  the  close 
of  Division  III.  Advanced  students  will  find  matter  in  Fisher,  Milman, 
Ramsay,  Hardy,  Alzog,  Sheldon,  and  Renan. 


CHAPTER   III. 

THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY:    DIOCLETIAN 
TO   THEODOSIUS. 

L     OUTLINE   OF   REIGNS  AND  EVENTS. 

(For  Reference  and  Review.) 

516.  Diocletian  to  Constantine.  —  Diocletian  (284-305  a.d.  )  reor- 
ganized the  government,  established  firm  peace  on  all  frontiers,  aud 
toward  the  close  of  his  reign  carried  on  the  most  terrible  and  thorough 
persecution  of  the  Christians.  In  305  a.d.  he  and  his  associate  Maximian 
abdicated.! 

There  followed  eight  years  of  civil  war  between  six  rivals,  and  several 
years  more  of  joint  rule  between  Constantine  and  Licinius.  Then  for 
fourteen  years,  to  337,  Constantine  ruled  as  sole  emperor.  He  made 
Christianity  the  favored  religion  of  the  empire,  and  he  built  at  Byzantium 
his  new  Christian  capital,  Constantinople. 

517.  From  Constantine  to  the  Division  of  the  Empire  under 
Valentinian.  —  Constantine's  three  sons  succeeded  him  ;  they  massa- 
cred many  relatives  in  Oriental  manner,  and  warred  among  themselves 
until  the  empire  was  again  united  under  one  of  them,  Constantius. 

He  was  succeeded  in  361  a.d.  by  his  cousin,  the  moral,  robust  Julian, 
known  as  "the  Apostate."  Julian  tried  to  restore  pagan  worship  and  to 
reform  the  corrupt  court,  but,  after  two  years,  fell  in  battle  against  the 
Persians  (363  a.d.).  An  officer,  Jovian,  was  elected  emperor  in  the 
camp,  and  on  his  death  a  few  months  later,  the  officers,  with  the  approval 
of  the  army,  chose  the  vigorous  Valentinian  to  succeed  him.  Valentinian 
restored  the  system  of  joint  emperors. 

1  When  pressed  afterward  to  assume  the  government  again,  Diocletian 
wrote  from  his  rural  retreat:  "  Could  you  come  here  and  see  the  vegetables 
that  I  raise  in  my  garden  with  my  own  hands,  you  would  no  more  talk  to  me 
of  empire." 

433 


434 


EMPIRE   OF  THE   FOURTH  CENTURY  A.D. 


[§518 


518.   Valentinian  to  Theodosius :  the  Last  "Partnership'*  Em- 
perors. — 

'Valentinian   I.,  r  (West.)     Associates    his    brother,    the    weak 
364-376.        i      Valens,  in  the  government. 


Valens, 
364^78. 


r  (East.)     Falls  in  battle  (Adrianople,  §  562) 
J      against  the  Goths,  who  (376  A.D.)  now  break 
I     over  the  Danube  permanently. 


Gratian, 

375-383. 

Valentinian  II., 

375-392. 


Theodosius  I. , 

379-395, 
known  as 
Theodosius 
the  Great. 


(West.)  Half-brothers,  sons  of  Valentinian  I. 
Valentinian  II.,  a  minor ;  Gratian  the  real 
ruler.  On  the  death  of  his  uncle  Valens,  he 
invests  an  exiled  general,  Theodosius,  with 
the  Eastern  Empire. 

(East,  379-383.)     Quiets  the  Goths  ;  succeeds 

to  the  real  authority  in  the  West  also  after 

death  of  Gratian. 
392-395.,  sole  emperor.,  even  in  name :  the  last 

real  union  of  the  whole  empire  under  one 

ruler.     Prohibits  pagan  worship. 


619.  Final  Separation  into  Two  Empires.  —  On  the  death  of 
Theodosius  the  empire  was  again  divided  between  his  two  sons,  Arcadius 
(§  573)  and  Honorius  (§  572).  This  marks  the  final  separation,  in  fact, 
of  the  East  from  the  West ;  after  this,  it  is  proper  to  speak  of  two  Roman 
Empires.  The  eastern  lasted  for  over  a  thousand  years  ;  the  western  be- 
gan to  crumble  almost  at  once,  and  had  disappeared  as  an  empire  within 
a  century. 

For  Further  Reading. — Pelham,  551-571;  Gardner's  Julian; 
Hodgkin,  I.  pts.  i.  and  ii. ;  Gibbon.     For  the  Gothic  invasion,  see  §  562  ff. 


II.     RESTORATION  AND   REFORMS. 

520.  "Partnership  Emperors"  and  Caesars:  the  Four  Prefec- 
tures, —r  In  284  A.D.  Diocletian,  a  stern  and  able  soldier,  became 
master  of  the  empire,  and  at  once  set  about  its  reform.  His 
plans  were  carried  out  in  greater  detail  by  Constantine  (306- 
337  A.D.).     The  work  of  the  two  should  be  treated  together. 

Diocletian  introduced  the  system  of  "  partnership  emperors." 


I 


'     5^    .%'^. 


■^v.^^ 


o()                        25                       30                        35                       40                          45 

50 

55 

~ 

fntrrVW   \ 

\ 

C\ 

50 

LL 

r%^ 

45 

te    h    ^\        \     JT 

■^k    1  \       \           \     rT^ 

\         ^ 

-^>\\ 

, 

/■-^^  1      h                          V/ir*  -^    \ 

^V^'"^^ 

■\  A 

^^kN  W«0,V' 

\ 

~HiHA  ^     3=r^    ^*^\-  - 

\ 

v          V 

4^ M^¥%SS^A       ^^■:- 

■■   -    \ 

>v^^   \ 

7 

n.S   OF    \  'i      i^    \           \      -^yo^              ).                      ..-AX 

^ 

^^ 

40 

1 

W#%^^-A^J^-5^ 

\ 

^ 

||^ 

86. 

<^^' 

^^:^:r" 

1 

V 

X 

!  -*^                 ll    1 

\^ 

30 

Y^^^^^^^^-A^^^.^jis^^wr^iSJ^ 

\ 

J  °-  o , ^^rr^Y^^'ti/ 

i 

-r-izn....      "  r^}^\^. 

26 

1    """\    r^*ww^ 

\^ 

vL— ^---'nL^r^^v^ 

*  ^ 

\ 

1 V— — "   "K          ^^«      .^ 

^  \ 

\ 

1                                 '                                   \     ---^          \       .-^"5i\ 

test      20    from         Greenwich        25                                              30                                              35 

40 

__ 

521] 


A  BUREAUCRATIC   DESPOTISM. 


435 


There  were  now  to  be  two  Augusti,  one  with  his  capital  m  the 
East  at  Nicea,  the  other  at  Milan.  Each  was  to  associate  with 
him  a  Caesar,  as  assistant  and  probable  successor.  The  empire 
was  marked  off  into  four  great  sections,  each  under  the  imme- 
diate supervision  of  one  of  the  four  rulers. 

This  was  not  a  partition  of  the  empire,  however.  It  was 
only  a  division  of  the  burden  of  administration.  The  power 
of  each  emperor  in  theory  extended  over  the  whole  empire. 
Edicts  in  any  part  were  published  under  their  joint  names. 
The  rulers  were  designed  to  act  in  harmony,  and  for  much  of 
the  following  century  they  did  so. 

521.  A  Complex  Hierarchy  Appears.  —  The  whole  administra- 
tion was  organized  into  a  systematic  hierarchy.  The  following 
table  shows  the  grouping  of  administrative  units :  — 


Prefectures. 

Dioceses. 

'  East.             >| 

Egypt. 

'  East. 

Asia  Minor. 
Pontus. 

The  East.  ^ 

^  Thrace. 

'  Macedonia 

One 

.  Illyricum.      -i 

and  Greece. 

hundred 

.  Dacia. 

and 
twenty 

'  Italy. 

Provinces.'^ 

'  Italy.             ^ 

Africa. 
^  Illyria. 

The  West.  ^ 

'  Spain. 

.  Gaul. 

The  Gauls. 
Britain.         ■' 

Countless 
Municipalities. 


Before  this  time  the  governors  of  provinces  had  stood  directly 
below  the  emperor.  Now  the  forty  provinces  were  subdivided 
into  some  one  hundred  and  twenty.     These  were  then  grouped 


1  A  table  of  provinces  is  given  in  Bury's  Later  Roman  Empire,  I.  xv.-xix. 
and  in  Bury's  edition  of  Gibbon>  II.  550  ff. 


436  EMPIRE   OF  THE   FOURTH   CENTURY   A.D.  [§522 

into  a  dozen  dioceses,  each  under  a  governor  of  higher  rank,  to 
sift  all  matters  that  came  up  from  the  governors  of  provinces. 
The  dioceses  were  again  grouped  into  the  four  great  sections 
of  the  empire,  called  prefectures,  and  each  of  these,  when  not 
ruled  by  a  Caesar  or  Augustus  in  person,  was  under  a  prefect, 
who  sifted  business  once  more,  and  sent  up  to  the  emperor 
only  the  more  difficult  or  important  matters. 

522.  Separation  of  Civil  and  Military  Functions,  and  Other  Mili- 
tary Reform.  —  The  governors  of  provinces  and  dioceses,  too, 
became  purely  civil  functionaries.  All  military  command  was 
intrusted  to  distinct  officers,  immediately  responsible  to  the 
emperor.  The  civil  and  the  military  powers  were  intended  to 
watch  and  check  each  other.  To  provide  further  against  mili- 
tary adventurers,  the  old  legions  were  broken  into  small  regi- 
ments —  with  less  of  corps  spirit  of  course,  and  less  possibility 
of  concerted  action.  At  the  same  time  the  imperial  army  was 
increased  some  fifty  per  cent  —  to  about  six  hundred  thousand 
men. 

523.  Growth  of  a  Bureaucracy ;  the  Heads  developed  from  An- 
cient ''Household  "  Offices.  —  A  third  change  was  directed  to  the 
same  general  end  —  to  divide  duties  and  to  fix  responsibilities 
more  precisely.  The  freedmen  of  the  emperor  in  the  Early 
Empire  had  been  intrusted  often  with  great  administrative 
power,  but  in  an  irregular  manner.  Now  these  "household 
officers  "  grew  into  state  officers,  each  with  a  permanent  depart- 
ment of  government,  and  each  the  head  of  an  extensive  system.' 

The  more  important  heads  were :  (1)  the  Great  Chamberlain, 

1  An  excellent  summary  is  given  in  Woodrow  Wilson's  The  State,  135,  136, 
from  which  the  next  paragraph  in  the  text  is  condensed ;  a  fuller  treatment 
is  given  in  Guizot's  Civilization  in  France.  This  growth  of  administrative 
oflSces  is  a  good  illustration  of  the  way  existing  institutions  and  organs  are 
adapted  to  new  needs.  Progress  in  government  has  been  mainly  by  adapta- 
tion, not  by  invention.  Out  of  a  city  government  Rome  developed  a  machinery 
to  govern  her  wide  dominions ;  and  Imperial  Rome  developed  her  machinery 
out  of  the  organization  of  the  royal  household.  This  last  phenomenon  has 
been  repeated  many  times,  as  in  the  empire  of  Charlemagne  and  in  medieval 
England. 


§526]  A  BUREAUCRATIC   DESPOTISM.  437 

originally  the  chief  of  those  who  served  the  emperor  in  his 
chamber ;  (2)  the  Master  of  Offices,  like  to  a  medieval  Justi- 
ciar ;  (3)  the  Quaestor,  an  imperial  chancellor ;  (4)  a  Treasurer- 
General,  to  oversee  the  provincial  receivers  of  revenue ;  (5)  the 
Count  of  the  Privy  Revenue;  and  (6  and  7)  two  Counts  of  the 
Domestics,  —  military  commanders  of  the  imperial  household 
troops,  cavalry  and  foot,  —  who  correspond  to  medieval  Con- 
stable and  Master  of  Horse.  This  organization  served  as  a 
model  in  Europe  for  many  centuries,  and  has  influenced  the 
form  of  all  modern  cabinets. 

Along  with  these  changes  at  the  court,  went  the  multiplica- 
tion of  subordinate  officials  of  all  kinds  throughout  the  prov- 
inces. Each  of  the  departments  of  administration  (bureaus) 
named  just  above,  and  many  others  not  named  here,  were  sep- 
arately responsible  to  the  emperor,  but  each  was  organized 
itself  into  a  hierarchy  of  officials,  responsible  each  grade  to 
the  one  above. 

524.  Despotic  Forms  Assumed.  —  To  secure  to  the  imperial 
power  greater  stability  and  reverence,  the  forms  of  monarchy 
were  now  introduced,  and  the  republican  cloak  of  Augustus 
was  discarded.  Subjects  prostrated  themselves  at  the  sover- 
eign's feet.  The  emperor  assumed  a  diadem,  dazzled  the 
multitude  by  the  Oriental  magnificence  of  his  court,  and  fenced 
himself  round  with  minute  ceremonial  and  armies  of  func- 
tionaries. Despotism  was  at  last  avowed  as  a  policy,  and 
adorned  with  its  characteristic  trappings.  The  senate  of 
Eome  —  the  last  of  the  republican  institutions  —  ceased  to  take 
part  in  the  government  of  the  empire,  and  became  only  a  city 
council. 

525.  General  Result.  —  Significantly,  like  the  reforms  that 
had  preserved  the  declining  society  of  Caesar's  day,  all  these 
changes  also  were  in  the  direction  of  a  more  despotic  organiza- 
tion (§  441).  The  medicine  had  to  be  strengthened ;  soon  all  its 
virtue  would  be  exhausted.  The  essence  of  the  changes  lay  in 
introducing  a  more  minute  subdivision  of  the  labor  of  adminis- 


438  EMPIRE   OF  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY  A.D.  [§  526 

tration  by  the  multiplication  of  officials,  and  in  making  them 
more  closely  respoyisible  to  the  despotic  head  by  the  establish- 
ment of  a  new  gradation  among  them. 

The  result  was  a  centralized,  bureaucratic  despotism.  The 
government  became  a  vast,  highly  complex  machine,  temporarily 
efficient  in  preserving  order.  For  a  time,  indeed,  it  galvanized 
society  into  new  life ;  but  it  pressed  itself  upon  the  masses  with 
crushing  weight,  and  the  final  collapse,  when  it  came,  was  the 
more  complete. 

To  this  despotic  organization  we  owe  thanks,  however,  for 
putting  off  the  catastrophe  in  Western  Europe  for  two  centu- 
ries more.  In  this  time,  Christianity  won  its  battle  over 
paganism,  and  Eoman  law  took  on  a  system  that  enabled  it  to 
live  even  under  the  approaching  barbarian  conquest.  Except 
for  the  interval,  these  two  greatest  gifts  of  the  empire  could 
hardly  have  come  to  us  in  so  vigorous  a  form. 

For  Further  Reading.  —  Seeley 's  ^omaw /mpenaZiswi,  65-96;  Gib- 
bon, chs.  xiii.  xxvii.;  Bury's  Later  Boman  Empire,  bk.  i.  ch.  iv.;  Arnold's 
Provincial  Administration,  166-178. 


III.     EXCURSUS. 

The  Nature  of  Bureaucratic  and  Centralized 
Administration. 

526.  Absolutism  and  Centralization  may  be  distinct.  Absolutism 
refers  to  the  source  of  political  power;  i.e.  in  a  system  of  absolutism, 
supreme  political  power  is  in  the  hands  of  one  person.  Centralization 
refers  to  the  kind  of  administration.  A  centralized  administration  is  one 
carried  on  by  a  hierarchy  or  bureaucracy  ;  i.e.  a  body  of  officials  of  many 
grades,  all  appointed  from  above.,  those  of  any  one  grade  being  responsible 
to  those  just  above  them,  and  finally  to  the  supreme  government.  This 
form  of  government  is  found  to-day  in  France  (a  republic)  and  in  Russia 
(a  despotism). 

Thus  absolutism  and  centralization  do  not  necessarily  go  together.  A 
government  may  emanate  from  the  people  and  yet  rule  through  a  central- 
ized administration.      It  may  be  absolute  and  yet  allow  decentralized 


§528]  THE   EMPIRE   BECOMES   CHRISTIAN.  .439 

local  agencies,  as  in  the  England  of  Henry  VIII.  or  in  Russia  in  past 
centuries.  But  absolutism  is  likely  to  develop  centralized  agencies,  as 
Russia  has  been  doing  in  recent  times. 

527.   Centralization  and  Local  Self-government  Contrasted. — 

An  efficient  centralization  under  a  great  genius  may  temporarily  confer 
great  and  rapid  benefits,  as  in  France  under  Napoleon  the  First.  But  the 
system  always  decays,  and  it  does  nothing  to  educate  the  people  politi- 
cally. Local  self-government  is  often  provokingly  slow  and  faulty,  but  it 
is  surer  in  the  long  run. 

Toulmin- Smith's  characterization  should  be  pondered  by  every  Amer- 
ican student  (^Local  Government,  12  and  20)  :  — 

"  Local  self-government  is  that  system  of  government  under  which  the 
greatest  number  of  minds,  knowing  the  most,  and  having  the  fullest 
opportunities  of  knowing  it,  about  the  special  matter  in  hand,  or  having 
.  the  greatest  interest  in  its  well-working,  have  the  management  of  it. 

*'  Centralization  is  that  system  of  government  under  which  the  smallest 
number  of  minds,  and  those  knowing  least,  and  having  fewest  opportuni- 
ties of  knowing  it,  about  the  special  matter  in  hand,  and  having  the 
smallest  interest  in  its  well- working,  have  the  management  of  it." 


IV.     THE   CHURCH  OF  THE   FOURTH   CENTURY. 

A.     The  Empire  becomes  Christian. 

528.  Constantine  and  his  Motives.^  —  The  great  event  of  the 
fourth  century  a.d.  is  the  victory  of  Christianity  in  the  empire. 
The  underlying  causes,  so  far  as  history  deals  with  them,  have 
been  touched  upon.  The  immediate  occasion  was  the  shrewd 
statesmanship  of  Constantine  the  Great.  Constantine  was 
one  of  the  contestants  for  the  throne  after  the  abdication  of 
Diocletian  (§  516).  We  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he 
gave  much  thought  to  the  truth  of  Christian  doctrine,  and  we 
know  that  he  did  not  practice  Christian  virtues ;  but  he  was 
astute  enough  to  recognize  the  good  policy  of  allying  this  new, 
rising  power  to  himself  against  his  persecuting  rivals. 

1  Carr,  eh.  iv. ;  Ulhorn,  420-444;  Schaff,  III.  11-37;  Alzog,  I.  463-473. 


440  EMPIRE  OF  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY  A.D.  [§  529 

The  Christians  still  were  less  than  one-tenth  the  population 
of  the  Empire.  But  they  were  energetic  and  enthusiastic ; 
they  were  massed  in  the  great  cities  which  held  the  keys  to 
political  power ;  and  they  were  admirably  organized  for  rapid, 
concentrated  action.  Constantine  may  have  seen,  also,  in  a 
broader  and  unselfish  way,  the  futility  of  trying  to  restore  the 
old  pagan  world,  and  have  felt  it  desirable  to  bring  about  har- 
mony between  the  political  government  and  this  most  power- 
ful of  single  forces  within  the  Empire,  so  as  to  utilize  its 
strength  instead  of  always  combating  it. 

529.  Christianity  Tolerated  and  Favored.  —  At  a  critical  mo- 
ment in  the  civil  war,  Constantine  issued  the  Edict  of  Milan : 
"  We  grant  likewise  to  the  Christians  and  to  all  others  free 
choice  to  follow  the  mode  of  worship  they  may  wish,  that 
whatsoever  divinity  and  celestial  power  may  exist  may  be 
propitious  to  us  and  to  all  that  live  under  our  government."  ^ 

This  ordained  religious  toleration.  At  a  later  time  Constan- 
tine showed  many  special  favors  to  the  Church,  as  by  grants  of 
money  for  building,  and  by  exempting  the  clergy  from  taxa- 
tion (cf.  §  483),  but  it  is  not  correct  to  say  that  he  made  Chris- 
tianity the  state  religion.  At  the  most  he  seems  to  have  given 
it  a  specially  favored  place  among  the  religions  of  the  Empire. 

530.  Persecution  by  the  Church.  —  As  a  result  of  his  favor,  the 
indifferent  masses  passed  over  rapidly  from  the  old  religion  to 
the  new  one,  and  before  the  end  of  the  century  paganism  was 
rapidly  dying  out.  The  tendency  is  voiced  in  the  following 
extract  from  Eusebius'  Life  of  Constantine  (II.  5),  purporting 
to  be  the  address  of  Licinius  to  his  soldiers  before  the  final 
conflict  with  Constantine. 

"Friends  and  fellow-soldiers:  These  are  our  country's  gods,  and 
these  we  honor  with  a  worship  derived  from  our  remote  ancestors.  But 
he  who  leads  the  army  opposed  to  us  has  proven  false  to  the  religion  of 
his  fathers  and  has  adopted  atheistic  sentiments,  honoring,  in  his  infatu- 
ation, some  strange  and  unheard-of  deity  with  whose  despicable  standard 

1  Translated  in  full  in  Pennsylvania  Reprints,  IV.  No.  1. 


§531]  THE   EMPIRE   BECOMES   CHRISTIAN.  441 

he  now  disgraces  the  army,  and  confiding  in  whose  aid  he  has  taken  up 
arms  .  .  .  not  so  much  against  us  as  against  the  gods  he  has  forsaken. 
However,  the  present  occasion  shall  decide  .  .  .  between  our  gods  and 
those  our  adversaries  profess  to  honor.  For  either  it  will  declare  the  vic- 
toiy  to  be  ours,  and  so  most  justly  evince  that  our  gods  are  the  true 
helpers  and  saviours ;  or  else  if  the  god  of  Constantine,  who  comes  we 
know  not  whence,  shall  prove  superior  to  our  deities  ...  let  no  one 
henceforth  doubt  what  god  he  ought  to  worship.  But  if  our  gods  triumph, 
as  they  undoubtedly  will,  let  us  prosecute  the  war  without  delay  against 
these  despisers  of  the  gods." 

Unhappily,  the  Church  at  once  began  to  use  violence  to  stamp 
out  the  older  religions.  The  Emperor  Gratian  allowed  the 
orthodox  Christians  to  prevent  all  worship  by  those  Christian 
sects  that  the  Church  councils  declared  unorthodox,  and  the 
great  Theodosius  forbade  all  pagan  worship.  Thus  Christianity 
became  the  sole  recognized  and  legal  religion.  Heathen  tem- 
ples and  idols  were  destroyed,  schools  of  pagan  philosophy  were 
broken  up,^  and  adherents  of  the  old  worship  were  put  to  death. 
This  deplorable  policy  was  opposed,  in  vain,  by  some  of  the 
greatest  of  the  Fathers,  as  by  Augustine  and  Chrysostom. 

This  persecution  by  the  Church,  in  centuries  to  come,  was  to  dwarf 
into  insignificance  even  the  terrible  persecutions  it  had  suffered.  The 
motive,  too,  differed  widely  from  that  of  the  old  imperial  persecution. 
It  was  not  political,  but  theological,  and  so  it  began  a  new  era.  In  gen- 
eral, each  persecuting  sect  since  has  justified  its  action  on  the  ground  that 
belief  in  its  particular  faith  was  necessary  to  salvation,  and  that  therefore 
it  was  right  and  merciful  to  torture  the  bodies  of  heretics  in  order  to  save 
their  more  precious  souls,  or  other  souls  endangered  by  them.  Under 
cover  of  such  theorj^  there  now  began  this  dark  and  bloody  chapter  in 
human  history  —  to  last  over  twelve  hundred  years. 

531.  Effect  of  the  Conversion  of  the  Empire.  —  The  conversion 
seems  to  have  produced  less  improvement  politically  than  we 

1  Special  report :  the  story  of  the  pure  and  noble  Hypatia,  of  Alexandria. 
Read  Kingsley's  novel,  Hypatia.  See  a  terrible  five-page  summary  of  early 
persecutions  by  the  Christians  in  Lecky,  II.  194-198.  The  old  religion  survived 
longest  in  out-of-the-way  corners ;  and  so  its  adherents  came  to  be  described 
as  pagans  or  rustics.  A  similar  fact  caused  the  Christian  Germans  afterward 
to  desf  ribe  the  like  class  in  their  speech  as  heathens  (heath-dwellers). 


442 


EMPIRE  OF  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY  A.D. 


[§531 


should  have  expected.  In  general  the  Church  fell  in  with  the 
despotic  tendencies  of  the  times,  so  far  as  human  government 
was  concerned.  So  far  as  great  social  institutions  or  customs 
go,  it  mitigated  slavery  somewhat  further;  it  made  suicide 
a  crime;  it  built  up  a  vast  and  beneficent  system  of  charity;^ 
and  it  deserves  almost  sole  credit  for  the  rapid  abolition  of 
the  gladiatorial  games.^    The  deeper  results,  in  the  hearts  of 


Hall  of  the  Baths  of  Diocletian:   now  the  Church  of 
St.  Mary  of  the  Angels. 


individual   men   and  women,  history  of  course  cannot  trace 
directly. 

But  no  event  of  this  kind  can  operate  in  one  direction  only. 
The  pagan  world  was  converted  at  first  more  in  form  than  in 
spirit,  and  it  reacted  upon  Christianity.  The  victory  was  in 
part  a  compromise.  .  The  pagan  Empire  became  Christian,  but 
the  Christian  Church  became,  to  some  degree,  imperial  and 
pagan.      The  gain  enormously  exceeded  the  loss;   but  there 


1  Read  Lecky,  II.  79-98. 


2/6.36-38. 


§533]  THE   CHURCH.  443 

did  take  place,  naturally  and  inevitably,  a  sweeping  change 
from  the  earlier  Christianity. 

532.  The  Importance  of  the  Victory  of  Christianity  just  at  this 
time  lies  in  the  fact  that  Christianity  was  then  able  to  con- 
quer also  the  barbarians,  who  were  soon  to  conquer  the  Empire. 
Freeman  {Chief  Periods,  67-68)  calls  the  conversion  of  the 
'Koman  Empire  the  "  leading  fact  in  all  history  from  that  time 
onward,",  because,  "where  R(5me  led,  all  must  follow."  The 
barbarians,  for  the  most  part,  became  Christians  before  they 
became  conquerors.  Otherwise  their  conversion  would  have 
been  more  difficult,  if  not  impossible. 

B.     Okganization.^ 

533.  Tendency  to  Monarchic  Government  and  to  a  Hierarchic 
Organization.  —  Naturally,  the  government  of  the  Church  came 
to  be  modeled  upon  that  of  the  Empire.  It  grew  more  and 
more  monarchic  in  type,  with  gradations  in  rank  and  with  geo- 
graphical divisions  corresponding  to  those  of  the  civil  state. 
Each  city  was  the  seat  of  a  bishop,  with  authority  over  out- 
lying parishes.  The  church  of  the  chief  city  in  a  province  was 
commonly  the  mother  church  of  many  other  societies.  From 
this  and  other  causes,  the  bishop  of  the  chief  city  gradually 
came  to  exercise  great  authority  over  the  other '  bishops,  and 
was  known  as  a  metropolitan,  or  archbishop.  The  next  step 
was  to  exalt  one  of  these  metropolitans  above  the  others  in  a 
diocese.  This  lot  fell  usually  to  the  metropolitan  in  the  chief 
city  of  the  civil  diocese.  Thus  the  civil  diocese  became  an 
ecclesiastical  unit  also,  with  its  chief  metropolitan,  or  patriarch, 
at  its  head.  By  degrees  the  East  became  divided  essentially 
between  the  four  patriarchs  of  Antioch,  Jerusalem,  Alexandria, 
and  Constantinople.  The  bishop,  or  metropolitan,  of  Rome 
held  a  like  position  for  all  the  dioceses  of  the  West — a  fact  due 

1  A  good  brief  statement  is  found  in  Curteis,  36-38.  Advanced  students 
may  consult  Schaff,  III.  ch.  x. ;  Alzog,  I.  195-206;  Sheldon,  239-2S9;  Hatch, 
Lecture  III. 


444  EMPIRE   OF  THE   FOURTH   CENTURY   A.D.  [§  534 

partly,  perhaps,  to  the  circumstance  that  there  were  no  other 
great  cities  in  the  West.^ 

To  complete  this  movement  —  to  make  the  Church  a  mon- 
archy —  would  have  required  only  to  exalt  one  of  these  patri- 
archs over  all  the  other  four.  This  did  not  come  to  pass, 
although  claims  to  such  jurisdiction  were  made. 

Thus  from  the  Empire  the  Church  borrowed  the  pomp  and 
the  admirable  organization  th^t  enabled  it  to  conquer  the 
conquerors  when  the  Empire  itself  fell.     Says  Freeman :  — 

"Before  this  Semitic  faith  could  become  the  faith  of  Aryan  Europe, 
its  dogmas  had  to  be  defined  by  the  subtlety  of  the  Greek  intellect,  and 
its  political  organization  had  to  be  wrought  into  form  by  the  undying 
genius  of  Roman  rule."     (Cf.  §  3,  note,  and  §  64,  close.) 

C.     The  Catholic  Doctrine. 

534.  Definition  of  Doctrine  and  Rise  of  Heresies.  —  The  early 
Christians  had  had  no  need  to  define  their  doctrines  in  nice 
detail,  but  gradually  Greek  speculative  thought  built  up  a  sys- 
tem of  theology.  This,  of  course,  brought  out  differences  of 
opinion.  In  such  disputes  the  opinions  o:^  the  majority  pre- 
vailed as  the  orthodox  doctrine,  and  the  views  of  the  minority 
became  heresy.  The  majority  of  these  early  heresies  arose 
from  different  views  as  to  the  nature  of  the  divinity  of 
Christ. 

535.  The  Arian  Heresy :  Council  of  Nicaea,  325  ad.  —  The  most 
important  doctrinal  dispute  in  the  early  centuries  was  the  one 
leading  to  the  Nicene  Creed.  Arius,  a  forceful  priest  of  Alex- 
andria, denied  that  Christ  was  equal  to  the  Father.  AthanasiuSf 
of  the  same  city,  became  the  foremost  advocate  of  this  equality. 
He  held  (1)  that  Christ  is  the  son  of  God,  (2)  that  he  is  the 
Saviour  of  the  world,  (3)  that  he  is  coeternal  with  God,  and 
(4)  that  he  is  of  the  same  substance  with  God.  Arius  denied 
the  last  two  points.     The  struggle  waxed  fierce,  and  divided 

1  The  term  diocese  in  the  West  never  had  an  ecclesiastical  use  correspond- 
ing to  its  civil  meaning. 


§636]  LITERATURE   AND   SCIENCE.  445 

Christendom  into  opposite  camps.  But  this  would  have  de- 
stroyed the  good  results  Constantine  had  hoped  for  from  his 
recognition  of  the  Church,  and  finally,  to  put  an  end  to  the  con- 
troversy, he  summoned  the  first  Ecumenical  Council.^  This 
council  met  at  Nicaea  in  Bithynia,  in  325  a.d.  The  view  of 
Athanasius  was  declared  to  be  the  orthodox  doctrine,  and 
Arianism  was  condemned  as  a  heresy.  It  was,  however,  to 
play  an  important  part  in  later  history. 

For  Further  Reading  on  the  Church  in  the  fourth  century  :  Carr, 
27-139;  Kingsley's  Hermits;  Lecky,  II.;  Stanley's  Lectures  on  the 
Eastern  Church;  Sheldon's  Early  Church;  Newman's  Arians.  The 
canons  and  creeds  adopted  by  the  first  four  Ecumenical  Councils  are 
given  in  Pennsylvania  Beprints,  IV.  No.  2. 

For  advanced  students  :  Hatch's  Organization  of  the  Early  Churches  ; 
Milman,  bks.  iii.  iv.  ;  Alzog ;  Schaff ;  Gibbon,  chs.  xv.  xvii.  Some  further 
extracts  from  sources  in  Pennsylvania  Beprints,  V.  The  nearly  Christian 
literature  is  translated  largely  in  the  Bohn  Library  or  the  Ante-Nicene 
Library. 

Special  Reports.  —  1.  Constantine's  "conversion,"  and  his  life  and 
character.  2.  Julian's  attempt  to  restore  paganism.  3.  Arius  and 
Athanasius  after  325  a.d.  4.  Other  heresies  of  the  early  centuries, 
especially  Manichaeism  and  Gnosticism  (and  Church  councils  occasioned 
by  them).  5.  The  Emperor  Theodosius  and  Ambrose.  6.  Hermits* 
(see  Lecky,  II.  107-140,  and  Kingsley's  Hermits).  7.  The  Bishop 
under  the  Empire,  his  life  and  work. 


V.     LITERATURE  AND   SCIENCE. 

A.    Authors  and  Works. 

536.  Theological  Character  of  the  Literature.  —  The  great 
names  in  literature  were  almost  all  names  of  churchmen,  and 
the  writings  were  nearly  all  theological.  In  all  other  lines  the 
period  was  one  of  intellectual  decay.  Poetry,  science,  and 
literature  proper  vanished. 

1  Universal  council,  representing  the  whole  Church.  Synods  for  separate 
portions  of  the  Empire  had  been  held  before,  of  course. 


446  EMPIRE  OF  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY  A.D.         [§537 

537.  Pagan  Writers.  ^ 

Ammianus :  an  Asiatic  Greek  soldier ;  spirited  continuation  of  Tacitus' 

history. 
Eutropius :  soldier  ;  summary  of  Roman  history. 
Julian  (emperor)  :  memoirs  of  himself  and  a  "Refutation"  of  Chris. 

tianity. 

538.  Christian  Writers. 

Ambrose  (Saint)  :  Gallic  Roman ;  lawyer  and  counselor ;  bishop  of 
Milan  ;  disciplined  the  Emperor  Theodosius;  wrote  letters,  sermons, 
hymns. 

Anthony  (Saint)  :  Egyptian  ;  hermit ;  letters. 

Arius  and  Athanasius  (§  535). 

Augustine  (Saint)  :  Numidian ;  bishop  of  Hippo ;  letters,  commenta- 
ries, sermons,  theological  works  ;  Confessions  and  The  City  of  God. 

Basil  (Saint) :  "I  *u     i     •    i        i 

^,  ,r.  .  xN  ^      >  theological  works. 

Chrysostom  (Samt)  :  orator  i 

Eusehius :  bishop  ;  ecclesiastical  history. 

Jerome  (Saint)  :  Pannonian  ;  Syrian  hermit ;  translated  the  Bible  into 
Latin  (the  Vulgate)  ;  controversial  works. 

Martin  (Saint)  :  soldier,  monk ;  bishop  of  Tours  ;  established  first 
monastery  in  Gaul  (famous  for  its  beautiful  manuscripts). 

Uljilas :  Gothic  hostage ;  became  bishop  and  missionary  among  his 
people  ;  converted  them  to  Arianism;  arranged  a  Gothic  alphabet 
and  translated  the  Bible  into  Gothic  (the  oldest  literary  work  in  a 
Teutonic  language  ;  a  copy  in  silver  letters  upon  scarlet  parchment 
is  preserved  in  the  library  of  Upsala  University). 

B.     Decline  in  Learning. 

539.  Attitude  of  the  Church  toward  Pagan  Learning.  —  The  no- 
blest movements  have  commonly  carried  some  evils  with  them. 
One  cause  for  the  intellectual  decline  is  that  the  Christians  in 
general  were  hostile  to  the  old  pagan  science,  and  even  more 
hostile  to  the  old  literature,  with  its  stories  (often  immoral) 
of  the  pagan  gods,  while  for  centuries  the  Christian  world 
itself  produced  little  to  make  good  the  loss.  Christians  had 
not  generally  attended  the  public  schools  until  they  were  able 
to  dominate  them,  and  after  that  the  schools  rapidly  deterio- 
rated.     That  the  new  society  should  have  feared  both  the 


§  640]  DECLINE   TN  LEARNING.  447 

charm  and  the  contamination  of  the  old  pagan  poetry  it  is 
possible  for  us  to  understand;  contempt  for  pagan  literature 
and  science  had  less  excuse,  and  savored  more  of  ignorance 
and  bigotry.^ 

540.  A  Few  Illustrations  of  this  feeling  may  be  given.  The 
Apostolical  Constitutions  (350  a.d.)  contain  the  injunction :  ^  — 

"  Refrain  from  all  the  writings  of  the  heathens  ;  for  what  hast  thou  to 
do  with  strange  discourses,  laws,  or  false  prophets,  which  in  truth  turn 
aside  from  the  faith  those  who  are  weak  in  understanding  ?  For  if  thou 
wilt  explore  history,  thou  hast  the  Books  of  the  Kings ;  or  seekest  thou 
for  words  of  wisdom  and  eloquence,  thou  hast  the  Prophets,  Job,  and  the 
Book  of  Proverbs,  wherein  thou  shalt  find  a  more  perfect  knowledge  of 
all  eloquence  and  wisdom,  for  they  are  the  voice  of  the  Lord,  the  only 
wise  God.  Or  dost  thou  long  for  tuneful  strains,  thou  hast  the  Psalms ; 
or  to  explore  the  origin  of  things,  thou  hast  the  Book  of  Genesis ;  or  for 
customs  and  observances,  thou  hast  the  excellent  law  of  the  Lord  God. 
Wherefore  abstain  scrupulously  from  all  strange  and  devilish  books." 
—  Quoted  by  MuUinger,  Schools  of  Charles  the  Great,  8. 

The  Fourth  Council  of  Carthage  (398  a.d.)  cautiously  re- 
stricted the  reading  of  secular  books  by  bishops;  and  even 
St.  Jerome,  an  ardent  scholar  during  most  of  his  life,  came  for 
a  time  to  rejoice  in  the  growing  neglect  of  Plato,  and  to  warn 
Christians  against  pagan  writers.  Many  of  the  early  Fathers 
were  themselves  learned  before  they  became  Christians,  and 
could  afford  this  tone  better  than  the  rising  generation  to 
whom  they  spoke.  Eusebius  exclaims,  "It  is  not  through 
ignorance  of  the  things  admired  by  philosophy,  but  through 
contempt  of  them,  that  we  think  so  little  of  these  matters, 
turning  our  souls  to  the  exercise  of  better  things."  Some 
unfortunate  results  appeared  very  early.  The  spherical  form 
of  the  earth,  for  instance,  was  a  well-known  fact  in  Greek 

1  The  attitude  was  somewhat  like  that  of  the  Puritans  of  the  seventeenth 
century  toward  the  plays  of  Shakspere  and  his  fellow-dramatists ;  but  in  the 
third  and  fourth  centuries  the  result  was  more  disastrous,  because  then  all 
literature  and  science  were  pagan,  and  so  banned. 

2  These  "  Constitutions  "  were  never  sanctioned  by  Church  councils,  but  this 
particular  passage  undoubtedly  represents  a  very  prevalent  feeling. 


448  EMPIRE   OF  THE   FOURTH   CENTURY   A.D.  [§541 

science  (§  259) ;  but  the  early  Fathers  demolished  the  idea 
for  the  Christian  world  by  theological  arguments.  "It  is 
impossible,"  said  St.  Augustine,  "  there  should  be  inhabitants 
on  the  other  side  of  the  earth,  since  no  such  race  is  recorded 
in  Scripture  among  the  descendants  of  Adam."  Many  argued 
in  like  tone  that  Scripture  gave  no  warrant  for  the  sphericity 
of  the  earth,  and  that  therefore  it  could  not  be;  "besides," 
some  of  them  added,  "  if  the  earth  were  round,  how  could  all 
men  see  Christ  at  his  coming  ?  "  Lactantius,  the  "  Christian 
Cicero  "  (§  514),  speaks  of  the  doctrine  in  these  words :  — 

"  Is  it  possible  men  can  believe  that  the  crops  and  trees  on  the  other 
side  of  the  earth  hang  downward,  and  that  men  have  their  feet  higher 
than  their  heads  ?  If  you  ask  them  how  they  defend  these  monstrosities, 
how  things  do  not  fall  away  from  the  earth  on  that  side,  they  reply  that 
the  nature  of  things  is  such  that  heavy  bodies  tend  toward  the  center, 
while  light  bodies,  as  clouds,  fire,  and  smoke,  tend  from  the  center  to  the 
heavens  on  all  sides.  Now  I  am  really  at  a  loss  what  to  say  of  those  who, 
when  they  have  once  gone  wrong,  steadily  persist  in  their  folly,  and 
defend  one  absurd  position  by  anotlier." 

541.  Persecution  of  Learning. — Unhappily,  to  enjoin  ignorance 
upon  the  faithful  did  not  content  the  more  active  spirits.  They 
turned  to  active  persecution.  At  Alexandria,  after  desperate 
strife  between  pagans  and  Christians,  the  Emperor  Theodosius 
ordered  the  destruction  of  the  temple  of  Serapis,  in  which  at 
this  time  were  the  great  library  and  the  delicate  astronomical 
instruments  that  had  been  used  by  the  Alexandrian  astronomers.^ 
Soon  after  (414  a.d.)  came  the  horrible  murder  of  Hypatia  (§  530, 
note),  and  the  final  suppression  of  Alexandrian  science.^ 


1  This  is  the  library  which  the  Mohammedans  have  been  accused  of  burning, 
some  three  centuries  later,  on  the  excuse  that  if  the  books  contained  only  what 
was  in  the  Koran  they  were  unnecessary,  and  if  they  contained  anything  else 
they  were  false.  Unfortunately,  this  story  seems  to  represent  not  so  unfairly 
the  attitude  of  early  Christians  toward  science  and  the  Bible.  (Bury,  how- 
ever, holds  that  the  burning  of  the  books  at  the  time  of  the  destruction  of  the 
Serapion  is  not  proven ;  Bury's  Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall,  III.  199-201  and  495.) 

2  Political  rivalry  had  a  part  in  these  outbursts  in  Alexandria,  but  they  were 
connected  with  a  wide-spread  movement  against  the  old  philosophy. 


§  643]  GENERAL  DECLINE   IN  SOCIETY.  449 

542.  The  Result.  —  The  complete  extinction  of  the  old  schools 
was  not  to  come  until  the  general  cataclysm  that  followed  the 
barbarian  invasions  in  the  next  century ;  but  it  is  undoubtedly 
true  that  those  institutions  were  already  being  destroyed,  or 
replaced  by  schools  of  infinitely  lower  character,  for  theological 
training  only. 

There  is  some  consolation,  perhaps,  in  the  fact  that  the 
schools  and  Greek  learning  had  already  begun  to  decline  in 
the  third  century  (before  the  triumph  of  Christianity)  along 
with  the  general  decay  in  the  Roman  world ;  and  it  is  possible 
to  look  upon  their  complete  overthrow  as  a  necessary  step  in  the 
erection,  centuries  later,  of  a  higher  and  nobler  educational  sys- 
tem. We  shall  have  occasion,  too,  to  notice  that  for  centuries  after 
the  barbarian  invasions  the  monasteries  were  the  sole  refuge  of 
learning  in  the  West.  None  the  less  it  is  shirking  the  facts 
not  to  recognize  this  hostile  and  bigoted  attitude  of  the  early 
Christians  as  one  of  the  leading  factors  in  the  decline  of 
Romano-Greek  science  and  letters. 

For  Further  Heading.  —  Laurie,  Bise  of  Universities,  19-27  ;  Mul- 
linger,  Schools  of  Charles  the  Great  (early  pages)  ;  Draper,  I.  314-326  and 
367  V  Compayre,  History  of  Pedagogy,  62-64  ;  West,  Alcuin,  9-21. 

VL     SOCIETY  IN  THE   FOURTH   CENTURY. 
A.     Introductory  Survey. 

543.  Growing  Exhaustion  of  the  Empire.  —  The  three  quarters 
of  a  century  after  the  reunion  of  the  Empire  under  Constantino 
were  marked  by  a  fair  degree  of  outward  prosperity,  despite 
several  brief  wars  for  the  throne.  But  the  secret  forces  that 
were  sapping  the  strength  of  society  continued  to  work  cease- 
lessly, and  early  in  the  coming  century  the  Empire  was  to 
crumble  under  barbarian  attacks.  These  inroads  themselves 
will  be  treated  farther  on.  We  may  notice  now  that  they  were 
at  least  no  more  formidable  than  those  the  Empire  had  so  often 
rebuffed.  Apparently,  indeed,  they  were  weaker.  The  barba- 
rians, then,  are  not  to  be  considered  as  the  chief  cause  of  the 


450  EMPIRE   OF  THE   FOURTH  CENTURY  A.D.  [§  544 

"Fall."  Those  causes  were  internal.  But  when  an  empire  is 
overthrown  from  internal  causes,  it  is  usually  either  by  national 
revolt  or  by  the  personal  rebellion  of  satraps.  Not  so  the  Roman 
Empire.  The  subject  peoples  had  no  desire  to  rebel,  and  the 
reforms  of  Diocletian  guarded  against  rebellion  by  governors. 
The  Roman  Empire  was  overthrown  from  without  by  an  ordi- 
nary attack,  because  it  had  grown  weak  within  and  had  become  a 
mere  shell.  This  was  not  due,  in  any  marked  degree  at  least, 
to  decline  in  discipline  or  bravery.  The  Roman  army  kept  its 
superb  organization,  and  to  the  last  was  so  strong  in  its  moral 
superioiity  that  it  was  ready  to  face  any  odds  unflinchingly.^ 
But  more  and  mo^-e  it  became  impossible  to  find  men  to  fill  the 
legions,  or  money  to  pay  them.  Dearth  of  men  and  of  money 
was  the  cause  of  the  fall  of  the  state. 

544.  The  Causes  Political  and  Social  rather  than  Moral.  —  The 

older  writers  explained  the  decay  on  moral  grounds.  Recent 
scholars  are  at  one  in  recognizing,  first,  that  the  moral  decay 
of  society  has  been  greatly  exaggerated,  and,  secondly,  that 
such  decay  operates  only  indirectly  anyway  upon  a  political 
society.  The  immediate  causes  seem  to  have  been  political  and 
economic,  especially  the  latter.^ 

B.    Classes. 

545.  General  View. — To  understand  ever  so  faintly  the  causes 
of  the  decay  of  population  and  wealth,  we  must  see  more  clearly 
the  make-up  of  Roman  society.  At  the  top  of  the  social  system 
was  the  emperor,  to  direct  the  machinery  of  government.  At 
the  bottom  were  the  peasantry  and  artisans,  the  producers  of 
food  and  of  wherewithal  to  pay  taxes.     Between  these  two 

1  Read  Dill,  288-291 ,  for  examples,  and  see  a  quotation  from  the  stout  soldier 
Ammiamis,  in  Sheppard,  139-141. 

2  On  the  exaggeration  of  the  moral  decline,  read  Dill,  bks.  ii.  and  iii.  (espe- 
cially pp.  115-131  and  227-228);  Seeley,  especially  54-(J4 ;  and  Adams,  79-81. 
Kingsley,  Roman  and  Teuton,  Lecture  II., gives  graphic  statement  of  the  older 
but  rather  unhistorical  view.  If  read,  it  should  be  corrected  by  Dill's  treatment 
of  the  same  authorities. 


§547]  THE  NOBLE   CLASSES.  451 

extremes  were  two  aristocracies, — the  senatorial  nobility  and 
the  curials,  or  civic  nobility. 

646.  The  Senatorial  Nobility  now  included  large  numbers  who 
never  sat  in  the  senate  either  at  Eome  or  Constantinople.  All 
high  officials  and  the  higher  clergy  belonged  to  this  class.  It 
had  swallowed  up  the  old  senatorial  class  of  Rome,  and  most 
of  the  knights.  It  was  a  nobility  of  office,  hereditary  for  two 
or  three  generations ;  but  if  a  family  kept  its  rank  it  must  fur- 
nish new  imperial  officials  from  time  to  time.^  Its  privileges 
consisted :  (1)  in  its  dignity ;  (2)  in  the  fact  that  a  member  was 
a  citizen  of  the  whole  Empire,  not  of  one  municipality  only ; 
and  (3)  in  exemption  from  municipal  taxes.  Its  burdens  lay  in 
heavy  forms  of  imperial  taxes,  both  direct  and  indirect.  A 
noble  might  at  any  moment  be  called  upon  for  ruinous  expenses  ^ 
at  the  capital,  or  to  assume  some  costly  office  at  a  distant 
frontier.  But  of  course  only  a  few  were  actually  so  burdened, 
and  the  lot  of  the  majority  was  enviable. 

547.  The  Curials.^ — Below  the  imperial  nobility  was  a  local 
nobility.  Each  city  had  its  senate,  or  curia.  The  curials  were 
exempted  from  conscription  and  corporal  punishment,  and  they 
had  the  management  of  the  local  finances ;  but  the}^  were  liable 
for  deficits  and  for  many  burdensome  duties  in  connection  with 
the  corn  supply  and  poor-relief.  Those  who  rose  to  the  higher 
magistracies  had  also  to  bear  extravagant  municipal  expenses 
in  providing  festivals  and  shows.  More  crushing,  however, 
were  the  imperial  burdens.  The  curials  became  the  collectors 
of  the  imperial  land  tax  in  their  respective  municipalities,  and 
were  made  personally  responsible  for  any  deficit.  The  needs 
of  the  Empire  caused  the  amount  to  be  increased  steadily, 
while  the  ability  to  pay,  and  the  number  of  curials,  as  steadily 
decreased. 

1  The  principle  seems  to  have  been  not  unlike  that  of  the  modern  Russian 
nobility.  Advanced  students  may  refer  to  Leroy-Beaulieu's  Tsars  and  the 
Russians,  I.  bk.  vi.  2  Dill,  249;  Bury's  Later  Empire,  37-42. 

8  Dill,  260-262  (excellent) ;  Hodgkin,  IL  585  ff. ;  Bury. 


452  EMPIRE   OF  THE   FOURTH   CENTURY   A.D.  [§648 

To  secure  this  security  for  the  revenue,  the  curials  also  were 
made  an  hereditary  class  and  were  bound  to  their  fun6tion. 
They  were  forbidden  to  enter  the  Church,  the  army,  or  the  law, 
to  remove  from  their  city,  or  even  to  travel  without  special  per- 
mission. Various  emperors  in  their  legislation  refer  to  the 
curials  as  the  "  sinews  of  the  commonwealth,'^  and  strenuous 
attempts  were  made  to  reenf  orce  their  numbers.  Between  them 
and  the  laborers  came  a  small  middle  class  of  petty  traders, 
small  landowners,  and  professional  men.  When  any  one  of 
these  acquired  a  certain  amount  of  land,  he  was  compelled  by 
law  to  become  a  curial ;  but  the  general  drift,  as  we  shall  note  in 
the  next  sections,  was  for  the  small  landowners  to  sink  rather 
than  rise,  and  they  could  furnish  few  recruits  to  fill  the  gaps. 

A  place  in  the  senate  of  his  city  had  once  been  the  highest 
ambition  of  a  wealthy  non-noble  citizen;  but  in  the  fourth 
century  it  had  become  almost  an  act  of  heroism  to  assume  the 
duty.  A  story  is  told  that,  when  in  a  Spanish  municipality  a 
public-spirited  man  voluntarily  offered  himself  for  a  vacancy, 
his  fellow-citizens  erected  a  statue  in  his  honor.  In  the  grow- 
ing exhaustion  of  the  Empire,  the  position  became  more  and 
more  unendurable,  until  to  the  natural  decrease  in  its  numbers 
there  were  added  desperate  attempts  to  escape  at  any  sacrifice. 
Of  course  the  desirable  escape  was  into  the  imperial  nobility,  but 
this  was  possible  only  to  a  few.  Others,  despite  the  prohibi- 
tions of  legislation,  sought  refuge  in  the  artisan  guilds,  in  the 
Church,  —  or  even  in  serfdom,  in  a  servile  marriage,  or  in  flight 
to  the  barbarians. 

548.  The  Artisans  were  grouped  in  guilds,  or  colleges,  each 
with  its  own  organization.  Each  member  was  bound  to  his 
guild,  as  the  curial  to  his  office. 

649.  The  Peasantry  had  become  serfs.*  In  the  later  days  of 
the  Republic,  the  system  of  great  estates,  which  had  blighted 

1  Arnold,  161-163;  Bury,  I.  28-32  and  III.  418^21;  Dill,  262-266.  The 
teacher  will  see  the  need  of  guarding  the  students  against  thinking  of  serf- 
dom as  a  result  of  the  barbarian  conquests  and  of  the  later  feudalism. 


§  549]  THE   COLONI.  453 

Italy  earlier  (§§  396-398),  had  begun  to  curse  province  after 
province  outside  Italy.  Free  labor  disappeared  before  slave 
labor,  or  continued  the  conflict  on  unequal  terms.  As  a  result, 
grain  culture  declined  and  large  areas  went  out  of  cultivation. 
To  remedy  this  state  of  affairs  in  part,  the  emperors  intro- 
duced a  new  system.  After  successful  wars,  they  gave  large 
numbers  of  barbarian  captives  to  great  landlords,  —  thousands 
in  a  batch,  —  not  as  slaves,  but  as  coloni,  or  serfs.  The  purpose 
was  to  secure  an  hereditary  agricultural  class  and  so  keep  up 
the  food  supply.  The  coloni  were  really  given  not  to  the  land- 
lord, but  to  the  land.  They  were  not  personal  property,  as 
slaves  were.  They  were  part  of  the  real  estate.  They,  and 
their  children  after  them,  were  attached  to  the  soil,  and  could 
not  be  sold  off  it.  They  had  some  civil  rights,  and  could  con- 
tract a  legal  marriage,  as  a  slave  could  not.  They  had  also 
some  property  rights.  Each  had  his  own  plot  of  ground,  of 
which  he  could  not  be  dispossessed  so  long  as  he  paid  to  the 
landlord  a  custom-fixed  rent  in  labor  and  in  produce. 

Augustus  began  the  system  on  a  small  scale  in  Italy,  and 
it  soon  became  a  regular  practice  so  to  dispose  of  vanquished 
tribes.  Of  course  this  made  it  still  more  impossible  for  the 
free  small-farmer  to  maintain  himself.  That  class  sank  into 
serfs ;  but  it  had  been  on  the  high  road  to  extinction  anyway. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  slaves  rose  into  serfs,  until  nearly  all 
cultivators  of  the  soil  were  of  this  order.  This  institution  of 
the  Empire  was  to  last  for  hundreds  of  years,  under  the  name 
of  serfdom,  and  it  was  to  help  make  possible  the  transition 
from  the  ancient  slave  organization  to  the  modern  free-labor 
organization  of  industry.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the  slave, 
it  was  an  immense  gain.  At  the  moment,  however,  it  was  one 
more  factor  in  killing  out  the  old  middle  class,  in  widening 
the  gap  between  the  noble  classes  and  the  small  cultivators, 
and  in  making  transition  from  class  to  class  more  impossible. 

In  the  fourth  century,  too,  the  lot  of  these  coloni  had  become 
miserable.  They  were  crushed  by  imperial  taxes,  in  addition 
to  the  rent  due  their  landlord  j  and  in  Diocletian's  time  they 


454  EMPIRE   OF  THE  FOURTH   CENTURY  A.D.  [§  550 

rose  in  Gaul  against  society,  in  the  first  of  the  series  of  Middle- 
Age  jacqueries,  to  plunder,  burn,  and  murder. 

550.  The  Approach  of  a  Caste  System.  —  Thus  society  was 
crystallizing  into  castes.  Not  only  had  the  peasantry  become 
serfs,  attached  from  generation  to  generation  to  the  same  plot 
of  ground,  but  the  principle  of  this  rural  serfdom  was  being 
applied  to  all  social  duties.  The  artisan  was  bound  to  his  hered- 
itary guild,  and,  just  as  truly,  the  curial  and  the  noble  were 
bound  each  to  his  hereditary  order.  All  freedom  of  movement 
seemed  lost.  Society  as  well  as  government  was  becoming  des- 
potic and  Oriental. 

C.   Taxation.^ 

551.  The  Empire  was  "a  great  tax-gathering  and  barbarian- 
fighting  machine."  It  collected  taxes  in  ordei'  to  fight  bar- 
barians. But  the  time  came  when  the  provincials  began  to 
dread  the  tax-collector  more  than  the  Goth.  This  was  partly 
because  of  the  decrease  in  ability  to  pay,  and  partly  because 
the  bureaucratic  organization  cost  more  and  more.  Says 
Goldwin  Smith:  "The  earth  swarmed  with  the  consuming 
hierarchy  of  extortion,  so  that  it  was  said  that  they  who 
received  taxes  were  more  than  they  who  paid  them."  The 
forms  of  taxation  were  manifold.  The  chief  ones  were  the 
poll  tax  (paid  mainly  by  the  coloni),  duties  at  the  ports,  legacy 
duties,  taxes  on  sales  of  all  kinds,  and  the  land  tax  (which 
crushed  the  curial s). 

As  in  France  before  her  great  Revolution,  so  in  the  Em- 
pire, the  upper  classes  secured  release  by  law  from  some 
of  their  proper  burdens,  and  succeeded  by  unfair  assessment 
in  shifting  most  of  the  rest  on  to  the  classes  less  able  to 
pay.^  Taxation  yielded  less  ;  the  revenue  shrank;  and  at  the 
same  time  the  wealth-producing  power  of  society  was  being 
dried  up  by  the  unfair  distribution  of  burdens  and  by  the 

1  Dill,  266-281 ;  Cunningham,  Western  Civilization,  182-195 ;  Arnold,  passim. 

2  Advanced  students  may  read  Taine's  Ancient  Regime,  bk.  v.  eh.  li.,  for 
the  comparison. 


§553]  CAUSES  OF   SOCIAL  DECAY.  455 

unproductive  expenditure  of  the  taxes  that  were  drained  from 
the  land.  The  Empire  suffered  from  a  lack  of  wealth  as  well 
as  from  a  lack  of  men. 

D.   Summary  of  the  Decline. 

552.  Economic  Causes  have  been  dealt  with  at  some  length. 
To  review :  they  fall  chiefly  under  the  heads  of  (a)  decline  of 
population,  and  (6)  increase  of  taxation  unwisely  apportioned. 
Back  of  these  conditions  lay  the  absence  of  money ,^  the  debase- 
ment of  the  coinage,  the  slave  and  caste  system  of  society 
(see  also  §  513). 

553.  Political  Causes. —  "The  benefits  of  despotism  are  short-lived ; 
it  poisons  the  very  springs  which  it  lays  open.  .  .  .  And  w^hen  once 
this  better  hour  has  passed  away,  all  the  vices  of  its  nature  break  forth 
with  redoubled  violence,  and  weigh  down  society  in  every  direction."  — 

GUIZOT. 

It  is  perhaps  hard  to  blame  despotism,  since  only  despotism 
had  saved  society  from  an  earlier  overthrow  (§§  441,  521). 
But  it  is  important  to  see  that  at  last  its  medicinal  value  was 
exhausted, — and  indeed  that  in  the  long  run  a  bureaucratic 
despotism  is  always  a  weak  government  (cf.  §  523). 

This  is  from  two  causes:  — 

a.  It  lacks  support  in  popular  enthusiasm ;  the  people  care 
little  whether  they  live  under  one  government  or  another. 
When  the  Teutons  broke  into  the  Empire  (§  562  ff.),  they  were 
resisted  only  by  the  regular  Eoman  legions,  not  by  the  provin- 
cials—  except  in  Britain,  which  was  less  thoroughly  Komanized. 
It  seems  probable  that  the  secret  of  decay  lay  largely  in  the 
loss  of  political  ideals  and  political  enthusiasm. 

h.  The  machinery  itself  gets  beyond  the  control  of  the  rulers. 
This  was  made  plain  in  these  days  of  Roman  decline.  There 
were  many  emperors  of  noble  purpose  and  of  fair  ability  who 
did  their  best  to  correct  the  evils  of  the  age ;  but  they  were 
helpless  against  the  universal  indifference,  or  "passive  resistance, 

1  Cunningham's  Western  Civilization,  182-184. 


456  EMPIRE   OF   THE   FOURTH   CENTURY   A.D.         [§  554 

or  secret  thwarting,  of  the  whole  body  of  nobles  from  whom 
the  officials  were  drawn.  The  tone  of  the  imperial  laws  waxes 
indignant  or  descends  to  urgent  entreaty;  but  the  purpose  is 
hampered  by  a  slow,  negligent,  or  corrupt  bureaucracy.  The 
emperors  had  lost  control  of  the  vast  machine,  and  in  this 
most  important  respect  government  was  reduced  to  a  paralysis. 
Dill  {Roman  Society ,  275-281),  after  a  review  of  the  efforts  and 
failures  of  the  emperors,  says :  — 

"These  are  a  few  examples  of  the  efforts  of  government  to  alleviate 
that  mass  of  misery  and  social  injustice  which  it  was  impotent  to  cure. 
To  a  sympathetic  mind,  there  is  no  more  painful  reading  than  the  Theo- 
dosian  Code  of  the  fifth  century  [§  573].  The  authors  of  these  laws  are 
generally  loaded  with  the  double  opprobrium  of  weakness  and  corruption. 
'The  unfortunate  are  always  to  blame.'  The  system  of  bureaucratic 
despotism,  elaborated  finally  by  Diocletian  and  Constantine,  produced  a 
tragedy  in  the  truest  sense,  such  as  history  has  seldom  exhibited  ;  in 
which,  by  an  inexorable  fate,  the  claims  of  fancied  omnipotence  ended  in 
a  humiliating  paralysis  of  administration  ;  in  which  determined  effort  to 
remedy  social  evils  only  aggravated  them  till  they  became  unendurable  ; 
in  which  the  best  intentions  of  the  central  powers  were,  generation  after 
generation,  mocked  and  defeated  alike  by  irresistible  laws  of  human 
nature  and  by  the  hopeless  perfidy  and  corruption  in  the  servants  of 
government."! 

554.  Th^  Infusion  of  Barbarian  Blood  and  Customs,  before  the 
Conquest.  —  The  only  measure  that  actually  helped  to  fill  the 
gaps  in  Roman  population  was  the  introduction  of  barbarians. 
It  is  hard  to  realize  on  how  large  a  scale  this  took  place.  The 
Teutonic  conquest  of  the  fifth  century  found  the  Roman  army 
composed  of  Germans,  and  whole  provinces  settled  mainly  by 
them,  w^hile  that  same  people  furnished  the  great  officers  of 
the  Empire  and  made  everywhere  a  large  part  of  the  slave 
and  serf  class.^  This  Germanization  of  the  Empire,  need- 
ful as  it  had  been,  helped  of  course  to  make  later  Germanic 
conquest  easier.      The  wall  of  partition  was  lowered.      The 

1  Special  reports  for  advanced  students :  the  Constitutions  of  Majorian,  and 
his  reign. 

2  Read  Bury,  I.  21-31;  Adams'  Civilization,  67;  Dill,  291-298. 


§654]  CAUSES   OF   SOCIAL   DECAY.-  457 

Germans  within  had  a  friendly  leaning  to  those  without.  It 
led  to  a  more  rapid  fusion  of  the  two  peoples  and  cultures, 
and  lessened  the  agony  of  the  change;  but,  in  reviewing  the 
causes  of  the  fall  of  Kome,  we  must  count  this  introduction 
of  conquered  barbarians  as  one  of  the  active  elements  of  dis- 
integration.^ 

For  Further  Reading.  —  (In  this  chapter  the  references  are  given  at 
the  end  of  each  section.)  On  the  internal  decay  and  the  causes  of  the 
"  Fall"  :  Seeley's  Imperialism^  Lecture  III. ;  Adams'  Civilization  during 
the  Middle  Ages,  76-88  (specially  good);  Bury,  I.  25-36;  Hodgkin,  II. 
532-613,  and,  if  accessible,  his  article  on  The  Fall  of  the  Boman  Empire 
in  the  Contemporary  Eeview,  January,  1898  (Mr.  Hodgkin  in  this  article 
does  not  even  refer  to  moral  causes) ;  Dill,  bk.  iii. 

REVIEW  EXERCISE  FOR  PART  V. 

1.  Add  the  dates  9,  14,  69,  180,  325  a.d.  to  the  list. 

2.  Extend  list  of  terms  and  names  for  fact  drill. 

3.  Memorize  a  characterization  of  the  centuries  of  the  Empire;  i.e., — 

First  and  second  centuries :  good  government,  —  happy,  peaceful, 
prosperous. 

Third  century:  general  decline,  —  material,  political,  and  intel- 
lectual. 

Fourth  century :  revival  of  imperial  power ;  victory  of  Christi- 
anity. 

Fifth  and  sixth  centuries  (in  advance) :  barbarian  invasions 
and  conquests. 

4.  Review  the  growth  of  the  Christian  Church  through  the  whole 

period. 

1  Bury  (1.33-35)  adds  Christianity  as  a  disintegrating  factor — in  no  un- 
friendly spirit;  and  Hodgkin,  a  strong  churchman,  has  an  even  more  striking 
passage  to  the  same  effect.  A  good  topic  for  special  report  by  advanced  stu- 
dents. 


PART   VI. 

KOMANO-TEUTONIO  EUROPE. 

The  settlement  of  the  Teutonic  tribes  was  not  merely  the  introduction  of 
a  new  set  of  ideas  and  institutions,  .  .  .  it  was  also  the  introduction 
of  fresh  blood  and  youthful  mind  —  the  muscle  and  brain  which  in  the 
future  were  to  do  the  larger  share  of  the  world's  work.  —  George  Burton 
Adams. 

♦ 

CHAPTER   I. 

THE   TEUTONS. 

555.  Early  Home  and  Peoples.  —  The  Rhine  and  the  Danube 
separated  the  Roman  world  from  the  barbarian  Germanic 
world  —  just  as  that  line  has  continued  to  divide  the  Romance^ 
nations  from  the  modern  German  and  Slav  peoples.  In  the 
fifth  century  the*  Germans  were  to  burst  across  these  rivers 
and  occupy  the  Western  Empire.  The  region  from  which 
they  swarmed  lay  between  the  Danube  and  the  Baltic,  north 
and  south,  and  between  the  Rhine  and  the  Vistula,  east  and 
west.  The  tribes  that  had  roamed  hither  and  thither  in  this 
region  for  centuries  were  known  to  themselves  by  no  single 
name,  but  the  Romans  called  them  all  Germans.  In  the  fifth 
century  the  more  important  groups  were  the  Goths,  Bur- 
gundians.  Vandals,  Alemanni,  Suevi,  Lombards,  Franks,  and 
Saxons.     The  Norsemen  were  to  appear  later. 

556.  Stage  of  Culture. — As  contrasted  with  the  Roman  world, 
the  Germans  all  had  a  strong  family  likeness  in  character 
and  institutions,  but  among  themselves  they  showed  wide  dif- 

1  Of  mingled  Roman  and  Teutonic  elements. 
458 


§557] 


CULTURE  —  CHARACTER. 


459 


ferences.^  The  distant  tribes  were  savage  and  unorganized. 
Those  nearer  the  Empire  had  taken  on  more  civilization  and 
had  moved  toward  a  stronger  political  union,  under  the  rule  of 
great  tribal  kings;  but  in  general  they  seem  to  have  been 
little,  if  at  all,  above  the  level  of  the  better  North  American 
Indians.  They  had  no  cities,  but  dwelt  in  palisaded  villages, 
as  the  Iroquois  did.  They  lived  chiefly  by  hunting  and 
fishing,  and  what  little 
agriculture  they  had  was 
managed  by  women  or 
slaves.  They  had  no 
true  alphabet  (except  the 
Gothic,  just  invented  by 
Ulfilas,  §  538)  and '  no 
literature,  except  rude 
ballads.^      They   had   no 


%^^^^_ 


A  Dolmen  of  the  Ancient  Germans. 


money,  and  their  trade 
was  barter.  Skins  or  rude 
cloths  formed  their  cloth- 
ing, but  the  nobler  warriors  possessed  chain  mail  and  wore 
helmets  crested  with  plumes,  horns,  dragons,  and  other  strange 
devices. 

557.   Character.  —  Tacitus  says  of  the  Germans,  as  a  whole :  — 

"They  have  stern  blue  eyes,  ruddy  hair,  bodies  large  and  robust,  but 
powerful  only  in  sudden  efforts.  They  are  impatient  of  toil  and  labor. 
Thirst  and  heat  overcome  them,  but  from  the  nature  of  their  soil  and 
climate  they  are  proof  against  cold  and  hunger."  —  Germania,  iv. 

The  usual  marks  of  savagery  were  found  among  them.  They 
were  fierce,  quarrelsome,  hospitable.  Their  cold,  damp  forests 
had  helped  to  make  them  excessive  drunkards  and  immoderate 
eaters,  and  when  not  engaged  in  war  they  would  spend  day 
after  day  in  sleep  or  gluttony.  They  were  desperate  gamblers, 
too,  and,  when  other  wealth  was  gone,  they  would  stake  even 
personal  liberty  upon  the  throw  of  the  dice. 


1  Read  Dill,  301,  for  illustrations. 


2  Special  topic:  the  Runes. 


460  THE   TEUTONS.  [§657 

At  the  same  time,  they  do  seem  to  have  possessed  some 
peculiar  characteristics  not  common  in  savage  races.  Women 
were  revered.  Tacitus  dwells  upon  the  excellence  of  their 
family  life.  "  The  married  state,"  he  says,  "  is  a  life  of  affec- 
tion, and  it  is  kept  pure."  They  reverenced  truth  and  fidelity. 
Their  grim  joy  in  fighting  rose  to  fierce  delight  in  battle,  and 
sometimes  to  a  "  Baersark  "  rage  that  knew  no  peril  and  made 
men  insensible  to  wounds.  In  particular,  they  possessed  a 
proud  spirit  of  personal  liberty  (in  striking  contrast  with  the 
classical  devotio-n  to  the  State),  a  "high,  stern  sense  of  man- 
hood and  the  worth  of  man,"  which  was  to  influence  profoundly 

later  European  history. 

Another  quality  is  even 
less  tangible,  but  deeply 
important.  The  Germans 
resembled  the  Hebrews  in 
a  serious,  earnest  tempera- 
ment, rising  sometimes  to 
an  imaginative  mysticism, 
T,  ^,  K  f  -r        which    has     made    their 

Battli:-ax    and    Mack.  -   Anns  of    ieu- 

tonic  chieftains  in  an  early  period.  Christianity   differ    widely 

from  that  of  the  clear- 
minded,  methodic,  sunnier  peoples  of  Southern  Europe.  They 
felt  the  solemn  mystery  of  life,  with  its  shortness  of  days,  its 
sorrows,  and  unsatisfied  longings ;  and  this  inspired  in  them, 
not  unmanly  despair  nor  light  recklessness,  but  a  heroism 
tinged  with  melancholy.  In  the  Song  of  Beowulf,  an  old 
poem  that  has  come  down  to  us  from  the  German  forests, 
the  chieftain,  about  to  go  out  to  an  almost  hopeless  encounter 
with  a  terrible  dragon  that  had  been  destroying  his  people, 
exclaims :  — 

"  Each  man  must  abide  the  end  of  his  life  work ;  then  let  him  that  may 
work,  work  his  doomed  deeds  ere  night  come." 

And,  again,  as  he  sits  by  the  dragon  mound,  victorious,  but 
dying:— 


§  558]  RELIGION.  461 

' '  These  fifty  winters  have  I  ruled  this  folk ;  lives  there  no  folk-king  of 
folk-kings  about  me  —  not  any  one  of  them  —  dare  in  the  war-strife  wel- 
come my  onset !  Time's  change  and  chances  I  have  abided ;  held  my 
own  fairly  ;  sought  not  to  snare  men ;  oath  never  sware  I  falsely  against 
right.  So,  for  all  this,  may  I  glad  be  at  heart  now,  sick  though  I  sit  here, 
wounded  with  death-wounds  ! " 

The  same  trait  of  mingled  gloom  and  heroism  is  seen  in  a 
unique  and  striking  feature  of  their  religion  (at  least  as  it 
finally  developed  in  Iceland).  This  was  the  belief  in  the 
"Twilight  of  the  Gods."  Heroes  who  had  fought  a  good 
fight  on  earth  were  to  reap  their  reward  hereafter  in  fighting 
beside  the  gods,  the  powers  of  Light  and  Warmth,  against  the 
evil  giants  of  Cold  and  Darkness ;  but  in  the  end  the  gods  and 
heroes  were  all  to  perish  before  the  powers  of  evil :  so  that 
with  these  Teutons,  says  John  Richard  Green,  "life  was  built, 
not  on  the  hope  of  a  hereafter,  but  on  the  proud  self-conscious- 
ness of  noble  souls." 

A  story  connected  with  the  conversion  of  the  Germans  in 
Britain  illustrates  the  same  trait.  The  king  of  Northumbria 
sat  among  his  chieftains,  and  the  missionaries  had  just  spoken.. 
Then  arose  an  aged  chief :  — 

"O  king,  what  is  this  life  of  man?  Is  it  not  as  a  sparrow's  flight 
through  the  hall  when  one  sits  at  meat  of  an  evening  in  wintertide  ? 
Within  is  light  and  warmth  and  song ;  without,  cold,  darkness,  and  icy 
rain.  Then  the  sparrow  flies  in  at  one  door,  tarries  a  moment  in  the 
warmth,  and  then,  flying  forth  from  the  other  door,  vanishes  again  into 
the  dark.  Such,  O  king,  seems  the  life  of  man  ;  and  if  this  new  teaching 
can  tell  us  aught  certain  of  the  time  before  and  after,  let  us  follow  it." 

558.  Religion.  —  The  old  German  religion  was  a  rude  poly- 
theism, based  on  nature  worship.  The  chief  place  was  held  by 
the  worship  of  Woden,  the  war  god  and  the  god  of  their  rude 
science.  From  him  the  noble  families  all  claimed  descent. 
Tho7',  whose  hurling  hammer  caused  the  thunder,  was  the  god 
of  storms  and  of  the  air.  Freya  was  the  deity  of  joy  and 
fruitfulness.^ 

1  Compare  with  Greek  deities,  §  100.  These  Teutonic  gods  live  still  in  our 
names  for  the  days  of  the  week.    Woden's  day,  Thor's  day,  and  Freya's  day 


462  THE   TEUTONS.  [§559 

The  Saxons  and  Franks  when  they  broke  into  the  empire 
were  still  heathen.  All  the  other  tribes  that  settled  in  the 
empire  in  the  fifth  century  had  just  become  converts,  in  name 
at  least,  to  Arian  Christianity,  through  the  labors  of  Arian 
exiles.     (Cf .  Ulfilas  among  the  Goths,  §  538.) 

569.  Political  Organization.  —  Tacitus  shows  the  Germans 
with  three  distinct  orders  of '  political  units,  —  village,  can- 
ton (or  later  "  hundred "),  and  tribe.  The  village  was  origi- 
nally no  doubt  the  home  of  a  clan.  The  village  and  the  tribe 
each  had  its  popular  assembly  with  its  hereditary  chief.  The 
tribal  chief,  or  king,  was  surrounded  by  his  council  of  smaller 
chiefs.     To  quote  Tacitus  :  — 

"  In  the  election  of  kings  they  have  regard  to  birth  ;  in  that  of  generals 
to  valor.  Their  kings  have  not  an  absolute  or  unlimited  power ;  and 
their  generals  command  less  through  the  force  of  authority  than  of 
example.  If  they  are  daring,  adventurous,  and  conspicuous  in  action, 
they  procure  obedience  from  the  admiration  they  inspire."  —  Germania,  7. 

"On  affairs  of  smaller  moment,  the  chiefs  consult ;  on  those  of  greater 
importance,  the  whole  community  ;  yet  with  this  circumstance,  that  what 
is  referred  to  the  decision  of  the  people  is  first  discussed  by  the  chiefs. 
They  assemble,  unless  upon  some  sudden  emergency,  on  stated  days, 
either  at  the  new  or  full  moon.  When  they  all  think  fit,  they  sit  down 
armed.  Silence  is  proclaimed  by  the  priests,  who  have  on  this  occasion 
a  coercive  power.  Then  the  king,  or  chief,  and  such  others  as  are  con- 
spicuous for  age,  birth,  military  renown,  or  eloquence,  are  heard  ;  and 
gain  attention  rather  from  their  ability  to  persuade,  than  their  authority 
to  command.  If  a  proposal  displease,  the  assembly  reject  it  by  an  inartic- 
ulate murmur ;  if  it  prove  agreeable,  they  clash  their  javelins  ;  for  the 
most  honorable  expression  of  assent  among  them  is  the  sound  of  arms. 
In  the  same  assemblies,  chiefs  are  also  elected  to  administer  justice 
through  the  cantons  and  districts.  A  hundred  companions,  chosen  from 
the  people,  attend  upon  each  of  them,  to  assist  them  as  well  with  their 
advice  as  their  authority,  "i — Tb.  11,  12. 

are  easily  recognized  in  their  modern  dress.  Tuesday  and  Saturday  take  their 
names  from  two  obscurer  gods,  Tiw  and  Saetere,  or  the  latter  perhaps  from 
the  Latin  Saturn,  while  the  remaining  two  days  of  course  are  the  Moon's  day 
and  the  Sun's  day. 

1  Cf .  the  early  Greek  political  organization,  §§  92-95. 


§561]  POLITICAL  ORGANIZATION.  463 

560.  The  "Companions."  —  One  peculiar  fact  in  social  organ- 
ization must  be  noted.  A  great  chief  was  surrounded  by  a 
band  of  "  companions,"  who  lived  in  his  household,  ate  at  his 
table,  and  fought  at  his  side;  to  them  the  chief  gave  food, 
weapons,  and  plunder;  for  the  honor  and  safety  of  their 
"  lord  "  they  devoted  their  energies  and  lives.  The  element  of 
personal  loyalty  in  the  institution  of  "companion"  and  lord 
was  to  influence  the  development  of  later  European  feudal- 
ism. The  class  in  Germany  itself  seems  to  have  been  made  up 
largely  of  outlaws  or  adventurers  skilled  in  arms.  It  grew  in 
importance,  however,  after  the  invasions,  and  finally  was  to 
develop  into  the  nobility  of  much  of  later  Europe  (§  611). 

561.  The  Charm  of  the  South.  —  The  sunny  south,  with  the 
wonders  and  riches  of  its  strange  civilization,  fascinated  these 
savages  with  a  potent  spell.  For  five  hundred  years  they  had 
been  striving  to  enter  in  and  possess  it.  The  pressure  of 
fiercer  barbarians  behind  them  and  of  their  own  increasing 
population  had  produced  certain  periods  of  special  effort,  and 
sometimes  they  had  burst  in  for  brief  periods  of  plunder,  but 
always  hitherto  to  be  driven  out  by  some  Marius,  Caesar, 
Aurelius,  Aurelian,  Diocletian,  or  Julian.  All  this  time,  how- 
ever, they  had  been  filtering  in  as  slaves,  coloni,  soldiers,  and 
adventurers,  and  even  by  whole  tribes  as  subjects  or  allies, 
until  Western  Europe  was  largely  German  in  blood  (§  554) ; 
all  this  time,  too,  the  wild  Germans  beyond  the  barriers  were 
learning  to  unite  into  larger  confederations,  and  to  act  to- 
gether in  their  attacks.  Now,  about  the  year  400  a.b.,  in 
the  exhaustion  of  the  empire,  they  began  at  last  to  come  in 
as  conquerors. 

For  Further  Reading.  —  Sources  :  Our  two  chief  authorities  for  the 
early  Germans  are  Caesar  and  Tacitus.  Caesar  drew  his  knowledge 
largely  from  the  Gauls,  and  his  treatment  is  provokingly  brief  ( Com- 
mentaries on  the  Gallic  War,  bk.  iv.  chs.  1-3;  and  vi.  chs.  21-24). 
Tacitus,  in  his  Germania,  treats  them  at  length,  but  less  as  a  skilled 
observer  than  as  a  moralist  — to  contrast  their  barbaric  simplicity  and 


464  THE   TEUTONS.  [§561 

virtue  with  the  vices  of  Roman  civilization.  Guernsey  Jones'  Source 
Extracts  —  Civilization  in  the  Middle  Ages  —  contains  twenty  pages  of 
extracts  from  the  Germania  which  should  be  accessible  to  every  student. 

Modem  accounts  :  The  three  most  readable  treatments  are  the  opening 
pages  of  Green's  English  People,  Taine's  English  Literature  (bk.  i.  ch.  i. 
sections  1-3),  and  Kingsley's  Bonian  and  Teuton,  1-16  (The  Forest 
Children).    The  last  is  idealized. 

Gibbon,  ch.  ix.,  gives  a  famous  discussion.  Kingsley  protests  indig- 
nantly against  Gibbon's  view  of  the  stage  of  Teutonic  culture ;  but  see 
Adams'  Civilization,  7,  8.  Advanced  students  will  find  the  Teutonic  spirit 
voiced  nobly  in  William  Morris'  Sigurd  the  Volsung,  and  an  admirable 
discussion  of  the  political  system  in  Stubbs'  Constitutional  History  of 
England,  chs.  ii.  and  iii.  Many  of  the  works  mentioned  at  the  close 
of  the  next  chapter  will  be  found  useful  for  more  exhaustive  study  here. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  INVASIONS  — FIFTH  AND  SIXTH  CENTURIES. 

How  can  a  man  draw  a  picture  of  that  which  has  no  shape  ;  or  tell  the 
order  of  absolute  disorder  ?  It  is  all  .  .  .  like  the  working  of  an  ant- 
heap  ;  like  the  insects  devouring  each  other  in  a  drop  of  water.  Teuton 
tribes,  Sclavonic  tribes,  Tartar  tribes,  Boman  generals,  empresses, 
bishops,  courtiers,  adventurers,  appear  for  a  moment  out  of  the  crowd, 

—  dim  phantoms,  nothing  more,  most  of  thtm,  with  a  name  appended, — 
and  then  vanish,  proving  their  humanity  only  by  leaving  behind  them  one 
more  stain  of  blood. — Charles  Kingsley. 

I.   THE  BURSTING  OF  THE  BARRIERS. 
A.    The  Danube  (376  a.d.). 

562.   Admission  of  the  West  Goths  into  the  Empire ;  Adrianople. 

—  The  event  which  we  now  recognize  as  the  fir^t  step  in  the 
victory  of  the  Teutons  seemed  to  the  Romans  at  the  time 
only  a  continuation  of  an  old  successful  policy  of  the  empire. 
Many  tribes  had  been  admitted  within  the  boundaries  as  allies 
and  had  proven  faithful  defenders  of  the  frontiers.  In  376  a.d. 
such  a  measure  was  repeated  on  a  vast  scale.  The  whole 
people  of  the  West  Goths  ( Visigoths),  possibly  a  million  souls, 
appeared  on  the  Danube  as  fugitives  from  the  more  terrible 
Huns  —  wild,  nomadic  horsemen  from  Tartary,  who  were 
wasting  southern  Russia.  Valens,  emperor  of  the  East, 
granted  the  prayers  of  the  suppliants,  allowed  them  to  cross 
the  Danube,  and  gave  them  lands  south  of  the  river. 

They  were  to  give  up  their  arms,  while  Roman  agents 
were  to  supply  them  food  until  the  harvest.  These  agents 
embezzled  the  imperial  funds  and  furnished  vile  and  insuffi- 

465 


466         INVASIONS  — FIFTH  AND   SIXTH   CENTURIES.      [§562 


§  563]  THE  BURSTING  OF  THE   BARRIERS.  467 

cient  food',  while  at  the  same  time,  for  bribes,  they  allowed 
the  barbarians  to  retain  their  arms.  The  Goths  rose  and 
marched  on  Constantinople.  At  Adrianople  (378  a.d.)  Valens 
was  defeated  and  slain,  and  the  victorious  occupation  of  the 
empire  began.  The  Goths  ravaged  the  land  up  to  the  walls 
of  the  capital,  but  they  could  not  storm  a  great  city.  The 
new  emperor,  Theodosius  the  Great  (§  526),  finally  pacified 
them,  and  they  remained  peaceful  settlers  for  nearly  twenty 
years. 

563.  Alaric :  in  Greece,  Illyria,  and  Italy.  —  In  395,  Theodo- 
sius died,  and  at  once  masses  of  the  Goths  rose  under  an 
ambitious  young  chieftain,  Alaric,  whom  they  soon  made  king 
of  their  nation.  Alaric  led  his  host  into  Greece,  spared  Athens 
for  a  heavy  ransom,  and  sacked  Corinth,  Argos,  Sparta,  and 
all  the  Peloponnesus.  Apparently  he  was  trapped  there  by 
the  gigantic  Vandal,  Stilicho,  a  general  of  Honorius,  emperor 
of  the  West ;  but  finally  the  Goth  either  bought  or  maneuvered 
his  way  out  with  all  his  plunder.  He  then  extorted  from 
Arcadius,  the  terrified  emperor  of  the  East,  a  commission  as 
imperial  lieutenant  in  Illyria  and  Greece;  and,  in  Kingsley's 
phrase,  "  there  he  staid,  somewhere  about  the  head  of  the 
Adriatic,  poised  like  an  eagle  in  mid  air,  watching  Eome  on 
one  side  and  Byzant  on  the  other,  uncertain  for  a  while  on 
which  quarry  he  should  swoop." 

In  402,  he  made  up  his  mind  for  Rome.  Stilicho,  the  Roman 
shield,  beat  him  off  in  two  battles ;  and  he  drew  back  for  a 
few  years  into  Illyria.  Meanwhile  Stilicho  turned  upon  and 
destroyed  a  more  savage  horde  of  two  hundred  thousand  wilder 
Germans,  who  had  poured  down  through  the  Alps  under  Rado- 
gast  and  were  besieging  Florence.  But  soon  afterward  Hono- 
rius, very  possibly  with  good  reason,  suspected  his  general  of 
plotting  to  seize  the  throne,  and  had  him  murdered.  The  deed 
was  signal  enough  for  Alaric  to  try  Italy  once  more.  This 
time  he  captured  Rome ;  and  then  for  five  days  and  nights  that 
proud  city  was  given  up  to  sack  by  the  Goths  (410  a.d.)  — 


468         INVASIONS  — FIFTH  AND   SIXTH   CENTURIES.      [§564 

just  eight  hundred  years  after  its  capture  by  Brennus  and  his 
Gauls.^ 

564.  The  Visigothic  Kingdom  in  Spain.  —  Soon  afterward,  Al- 
aric  died  in  South  Italy.  His  brother  and  successor,  Ataulf, 
felt  more  strongly  the  spell  of  Eoman  civilization.  He  himself 
has  stated  his  purpose :  — 

"It  was  at  first  my  wish  to  destroy  the  Roman  name,  and  erect  in  its 
place  a  Gothic  empire,  taking  to  myself  the  place  and  the  powers  of  Caesar 
Augustus.  But  when  experience  taught  me  that  the  untamable  barbarism 
of  the  Goths  would  not  suffer  them  to  live  beneath  the  sway  of  law,  .  .  . 
I  chose  the  glory  of  renewing  and  maintaining  by  Gothic  strength  the  fame 
of  Rome,  desiring  to  go  down  to  posterity  as  the  restorer  of  that  Roman 
power  which  it  was  beyond  my  power  to  replace." 

Ataulf  married  the  emperor's  sister,  and  accepted  a  com- 
mission to  conquer  certain  German  tribes  that  had  meanwhile 
crossed  the  Rhine  (§§  565-567);  and  so  the  Goths  left  Italy, 
and  set  up  a  kingdom  in  Southern  Gaul  and  Spain  (414-419 
A.D.).  Gaul  they  were  to  lose  in  less  than  a  century  to  other 
Germans  (§  590),  but  the  Visigothic  kingdom  in  Spain  lasted 
three  hundred  years,  to  the  Moorish  conquest  (§  625),  and  its 
fragments  were  to  grow  together  again  through  the  Middle  Ages 
into  the  Spain  of  to-day.  The  date  419  a.d.  marks  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  first  permanent  Teutonic  state  within  the 
old  Empire. 

B.    The  Rhine.  ' 

565.  The  Barrier  Bursts,  406  a.d.  —  Italy  was  now  to  have 
peace  for  a  generation  under  puppet  emperors  and  the  Ger- 
man lieutenants  behind  the  throne;  but  the  Rhine  frontier 
had  already  given  way,  between  the  two  invasions  of  Italy  by 
Alaric,  and  all  the  Western  Empire  outside  Italy  was  quickly 
lost.  Clouds  of  Germans  had  long  been  massing  on  the  Rhine. 
In  406  A.D.  they  forced  a  passage,  and  then  with  little  oppo- 
sition spread  themselves  over  the  land.  The  leading  peoples 
in  the  invasion  were  Burgundians,  Vandals,  and  Suevi. 

1  Read  Dill,  303-314,  for  the  moral  effect  of  the  capture  of  Rome. 


,ogo' 


,^^e 


by 


the 


HUt 


OTO^ 


\~n  v'^"^ 


<\  > 


.<^ 


.& 


/^ 


Danube 


t^  i  J .    C    K       SEA 


II   t3- 


c/ 


EXFLANAXION: 

— FIRST  INROAD  OF  HUNS 

^^— —   SECOND  INROAD  OF  HUNS 

VANDALS 

<< — VISIGOTHS 

I  I  II   I      OSTROGOTHS.  TO  488 

f-H •(■    FRANKS 

Q^   »    1     «       JUTES,  SAXONS,  AND  ANGLES. 


§  568]  THE  BURSTING  OF  THE  BARRIERS.  469 

566.  The  Burgunds  settled  on  the  upper  Rhine,  where  the 
name  of  their  kingdom  has  always  remained.  A  little  later, 
under  their  king,  Gundohald,  they  produced  the  earliest  written 
code  of  Teutonic  law.  Like  the  Goths,  too,  they  soon  came  to 
regard  themselves,  in  a  vague  way,  as  living  under  the  author- 
ity of  the  Empire.  A  Burgundian  king,  thanking  the  emperor 
for  the  title  Patrician,  writes :  — 

*'  My  people  is  yours,  and  to  rule  them  delights  me  less  than  to  serve 
you.  .  .  .  Our  ancestors  have  always  preferred  what  an  emperor  gave  to 
all  their  fathers  could  bequeath.  In  ruling  our  nation,  we  hold  ourselves 
but  your  lieutenants:  you,  whose  divinely  appointed  sway  no  barrier 
bounds,  whose  beams  shine  from  the  Bosphorus  into  distant  Gaul,  employ 
us  to  administer  the  remoter  regions  of  your  empire ;  your  world  is  our 
Fatherland." 

567.  The  Vandals  and  Suevi  ravaged  Gaul  and  settled  in  Spain 
(409  A.D.).  In  414  the  West  Goths  attacked  them  (§  564) ;  the 
Suevi  remained  in  the  northwest  corner  of  the  peninsula  as 
subjects  of  the  Gothic  state;  the  Vandals,  in  427,  crossed  to 
Africa,  and,  after  ten  years  of  warfare,  set  up  a  Teutonic  king- 
dom there,  with  its  capital  at  Carthage.  These  Vandals,  whose 
name  has  become  a  synonym  for  wanton  destructiveness,  were 
the  most  untamable  of  all  the  Teutonic  peoples.  In  Africa 
they  soon  became  pirates,  terrorizing  the  Mediterranean.  In 
455,  they  invaded  Italy  and  sacked  Kome  in  a  way  that  made 
Alaric's  capture  seem  merciful.  A  century  later,  however,  the 
Vandal  kingdom  was  overthrown  by  the  imperial  general  Belisa- 
rius,  and  Africa  was  again  added  to  the  Eastern  Empire  (§  583). 

568.  The  Franks  and  Romans  in  North  Gaul.  —  Another  great 
German  people,  the  Franks,  had  long  had  homes  on  both  sides 
of  the  lower  Rhine,  from  Cologne  to  the  sea.  They  had  been 
"  allies  "  of  Rome ;  but  now  they  began  to  add  to  their  terri- 
tory by  spreading  themselves  slowly  over  north  Gaul.  In  the 
end  they  were  to  prove  the  most  important  of  all  the  Teutonic 
invaders,  but  their  real  advance  was  not  to  begin  until  toward 
the  close  of  the  century  (§  587  ff.).     Meantime,  in  northwestern 


470         IN VASIONS  —  FIFTH  AND  SIXTH   CENTURIES.      [§569 

Gaul,  a  semblance  of  Koman  authority  was  kept  up  by  Roman 
generals,  who  were  really  independent  sovereigns. 

II.    THE   HUNS. 

669.   New  Barbarian  Races :  the  Turanian  Huns.  —  The  Roman 

world  had  already  come  in  contact  with  Celts  in  Western  Europe,  Ger- 
mans in  the  central  parts,  and  Slavs  (§§  3  and  9)  in  the  eastern.  Behind 
these,  and  breaking  through  them,  pressed  a  confused  mass  of  ruder 
peoples,  —  Huns,  Tartars,  Finns,  Avars  (§  562).  These  are  all  spoken 
of  sometimes  (with  the  Turks)  as  Turanians.  The  word  does  not  express 
race-relationship,  properly,  but  rather  a  stage  of  culture  and  of  language. 
The  various  peoples  comprehended  under  this  name  spoke  languages  in 
the  "agglutinative"  stage  (like  our  Indians), — a  stage  which  precedes 
inflected  language,  such  as  Romans,  Greeks,  Teutons,  and  Slavs  spoke,  — 
and  some  of  these  more  savage  peoples,  too  (Huns,  Bulgars,  Avars),  do 
seem,  from  the  physical  descriptions  left  us,  to  have  belonged  to  different 
stocks  from  the  other  European  races.  The  student  must  he  careful  not 
to  confuse  any  of  these,  or  the  Slavs,  with  the  Teutons. 

570.  Chalons. — In  the  midst  of  the  occupation  of  the  empire 
by  the  Teutons,  the  conquerors  and  the  decaying  Roman  world 
were  menaced  with  common  ruin.  Attila,  king  of  the  Huns, 
had  built  up  a  vast  military  power,  reaching  from  central  Asia 
into  central  Europe,  and  now  his  terrible  hordes  swept  into 
Gaul.  It  was  his  characteristic  boast  that  grass  never  grew 
again  where  his  horse's  hoofs  had  trod.  The  fate  of  civilization 
hung  trembling  in  the  balance,  while  the  great  "  battle  of  the 
nations  "  was  fought  out  at  Chalons  (451  a.d.).  Hun,  Slav, 
Tartar,  Finn,  and  the  tributary  Teutonic  nations  matched 
themselves  against  the  Roman  and  the  free  Teutons  (West 
Goth,  Burgundian,  and  Frank).  Even  when  so  reeuforced,  the 
forces  of  civilization  were  insignificant  before  the  innumerable 
host  of  Asiatic  barbarians ;  but  victory  was  won  by  the  general- 
ship of  the  Roman  leader,  the  hero  Aetius.  Attila  is  said  to 
have  lost  from  one  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  to  three  hun- 
dred thousand  men  (greatly  exaggerated  numbers,  no  doubt)  j 
and  with  spent  force  his  invasion  rolled  away  to  Italy  and  the 
East 


§571]  THE  HUNS.  471 

Even  had  the  Huns  won,  they  could  hardly  have  held  an  empire 
together ;  and  so  this  contest  between  savagery  and  civilization  was 
perhaps  less  critical  than  a  struggle  between  rival  civilizations,  as  at 
Marathon  or  the  Metaurus,  or,  later,  at  Tours  (§  625).  But  it  is  easy  to 
mal^e  too  much  of  this  consideration.  At  that  decisive  moment  the 
Teutons  were  still  hesitating  on  the  threshold  of  civilization,  and  a  Roman 
defeat  would  have  annihilated  the  championship  of  civilization  in  Western 
Europe.  Under  these  conditions,  even  a  brief  Tartar  domination  might 
have  wrought  irreparable  loss  ;  and  so,  both  for  character  and  conse- 
quence, the  battle  of  Chalons  has  always  seized  upon  the  imagination. 

"  That  is  the  Hunnenschlacht ;  '  a  battle,'  as  Jornandes  calls  it,  '  atrox, 
multiplex,  immane,  pertinax.'  Antiquity,  he  says,  tells  of  nothing  like 
it.  No  man  who  had  lost  that  sight  could  say  that  he  had  seen  aught 
worth  seeing.  A  fight  gigantic,  supernatural  in  vastness  and  horror,  and 
in  the  legends  which  still  hang  about  the  place.  You  may  see  one  of  them 
in  Von  Kaulbach's  immortal  design  —  the  ghosts  of  the  Huns  and  the 
ghosts  of  the  Germans  rising  from  their  graves  on  the  battle-night  in  every 
year,  to  fight  it  over  again  in  the  clouds,  while  the  country  far  and  wide 
trembles  at  their  ghostly  hurrah."  —  Kingsley,  Boman  and  Teuton^  88. 

"  It  was  the  perpetual  question  of  history,  the  struggle  told  long  ago  by 
Herodotus,  the  struggle  between  Europe  and  Asia,  the  struggle  between 
cosmos  and  chaos  — the  struggle  between  Aetius  and  Attila.  For  Aetius 
was  the  man  who  now  stood  in  the  breach,  and  sounded  the  Roman  trum- 
pet to  call  the  nations  to  do  battle  for  the  hopes  of  humanity,  and  defend 
the  cause  of  reason  against  the  champions  of  brute  force.  The  menace  of 
that  monstrous  host  which  was  preparing  to  pass  the  Rhine  was  to  exter- 
minate the  civilization  that  had  grown  up  for  centuries  .  .  .  and  to 
paralyze  the  beginnings  of  Teutonic  life.  .  .  . 

"  But  the  interests  of  the  Teutons  were  more  vitally  concerned  at  this 
crisis  than  [even]  the  interests  of  the  empire.  .  .  .  Their  nascent  civili- 
zation  would  have  been  crushed  under  the  yoke  of  that  servitude  which 
blights,  and  they  would  not  have  been  able  to  learn  longer  at  the  feet  of 
Rome  the  arts  of  peace  and  culture."  —  Bury,  I.  176. 

571.   Attila  before  Rome;  Pope  Leo.  —  The  Huns  turned  upon 

defenceless  Rome ;  but  the  great  Pope  Leo,  by  his  personal 
intercession,  worked  the  miracle  of  turning  the  Tartar  from 
his  prey.  One  ancient  writer,  indeed,  hints  that  Attila's  army 
was  wasting  under  Italian  fever  and  the  harassing  strategy 
of  Aetius,  whose  smaller  forces  hung  upon  its  flanks.     At  all 


472         INVASIONS  — FIFTH   AND   SIXTH   CENTURIES.      [§572 

events,  Attila  withdrew  from  Italy,  to  die  shortly  after.  His 
empire  fell  to  pieces,  and  the  Teutons  of  Germany  regained 
their  freedom  in  another  great  battle,  at  Netad. 

One  curious  result  followed  Attila's  invasion  of  Italy.  To 
escape  the  Huns,  some  of  the  ancient  Veneti  of  northeast  Italy 
took  refuge  among  swampy  islands  at  the  head  of  the  Adriatic, 
and  so  began  a  settlement  destined  to  grow,  in  a  later  age,  into 
the  great  republic  of  Venice. 

III.    ITALY   AND  THE   EASTERN  EMPIRE. 

In  the  Fifth  and  Sixth  Centuries  (from  Alaric  to  the  Lombards) . 

"Taking  one's  stand  at  Rome,  and  looking  toward  the  north,  what 
does  one  see  for  nearly  one  hundred  years  ?  Wave  after  wave  rising  out 
of  the  north,  the  land  of  night,  and  wonder,  and  the  terrible  unknown  ; 
visible  only  as  the  light  of  Roman  civilization  strikes  their  crests,  and  they 
dash  against  the  Alps,  and  roll  over  through  the  mountain  passes,  into 
the  fertile  plains  below.  Then  at  last  they  are  seen  but  too  well ;  and 
you  discover  that  the  wayes  are  living  men,  women,  and  children,  horses^ 
dogs,  and  cattle,  all  rushing  headlong  into  that  great  whirlpool  of  Italy  : 
and  yet  the  gulf  is  never  full.  The  earth  drinks  up  the  blood  ;  the  bones 
decay  into  the  fruitful  soil ;  the  very  names  and  memories  of  whole  tribes 
are  washed  away.  And  the  result  of  an  immigration  which  may  be 
counted  by  hundreds  of  thousands  is  this  —  that  all  the  land  is  waste." 

—  KiNGSLEY,  Boman  and  Teuton,  58. 

A.    Table  of  Emperors,  to  the  Last  Western  Emperor 

572.   Western  Empire.  573.   Eastern  Empire. 

Honorius,  395-423  a.d.  Arcadius,  395-408  a.d. 

Stilicho,  the  Vandal,  the  real  power ;  re- 
pulses Alaric ;  is  suspected  and  murdered 
by  Honorius  (409  a.d.).  Alaric's  Goths 
sack  Rome  (410  a.d.).  Final  loss  of 
most  of  Gaul  and  Spain  to  Burgundians, 
Goths,  Suevi,  and  Franks  (§§  603-608). 

Valentinian  III.,  425-455  a.d. 

Loss  of  Africa  (Vandals).  AUius  (a  Ger- 
man brought  up  among  the  Huns),  now 
the  imperial  general,  the  real  upholder 


Theodosius  IT., 
408-450  A.D. 

Theodosian  Code, 
438  A.D. 


574] 


ITALY  AND  THE   EASTERN  EMPIRE. 


473 


of  the  empire ;  saves  part  of  Gaul ;  re- 
pulses Attila  {Chd,lons,  451  a.d.);  is 
murdered  by  Valentinian,  who  suspects 
him  ;  Valentinian  himself  murdered  by 
Roman  senator,  Maximus,  whose  home 
he  has  outraged. 

Maximus,  455  a.d. 

Compels  Eudoxia,  widow  of  his  victim,  to 
marry  him  ;  she  invites  Geiseric,  king  of 
the  Vandals,  to  avenge  her  ;  the  Vandals 
cross  from  Carthage,  capture  Rome, 
sack  it  for  fourteen  days,  and  carry 
-away  the  plunder  of  the  world,  much  of 
it  to  sink  in  a  storm  in  the  Mediterranean 
(§  667). 

Count  Rikimer,  456-472  a.d. 

A  German  imperial  general;  sets  up  and 
deposes  four  puppet-emperors  (does,  at 
last,  what  Stilicho  and  Aetius  had  been 
suspected  of  wanting  to  do). 

Orestes,  472-476  a.d. 

Imperial  general ;  deposes  the  reigning 
emperor  and  sets  up  his  own  son  — 
Romulus  Augustulus.  (Note  the  advance 
upon  Rikimer.)  He  is  overthrown  by 
Odovaker  (next  paragraph),  and  the 
West  has  no  emperor  again  until  800  a.d. 


Marcian,  450-457  a.d. 


Leo  I.,  457-474  a.d. 


Zeno,  474-491  a.d. 
Reunites  the  empire   in 
name. 


B.   Odovaker  (Odoaceb). 

574.  In  476,  Odovaker,  another  German  officer  in  imperial 
service,  seized  the  power  in  Italy,  slew  Orestes,  and  sent  the 
dethroned  boy,  Romulus  Augustulus,  to  live  in  luxurious  retire- 
ment in  a  villa  near  Naples.  Odovaker  was  leader  of  the 
Heruli,  a  small  German  people,  and  his  power  in  Italy  rested 
on  their  support  and  on  that  of  other  German  mercenaries.  He 
represents  an  advance  upon  the  policy  of  the  earlier  German 
officers  of  the  century,  who  had  ruled  Italy  at  the  head  of 
imperial  armies  and  through  puppet  emperors.  But,  after  all, 
it  is  the  same  policy  developed  a  little  farther,  and  the  date 


474         INVASIONS  — FIFTH  AND   SIXTH   CENTURIES.       [§  575 

476  A.D.,  which  is  sometimes  said  to  mark  the  Fall  of  Rome,  is 
only  one  in  a  series,  and  neither  first  nor  last. 

Odovaker  did  not  dare  call  himself  king  of  Italy.  The 
Koman  senate,  at  his  command,  sent  to  Zeno  at  Constantinople 
(§  573),  urging  that  the  West  needed  no  separate  emperor,  and 
asking  that  Zeno  receive  Italy  as  part  of  his  dominion,  to 
be  ruled  under  Odovaker  as  lieutenant.  This  was  of  course 
granted,  and  Italy  in  name  became  a  province  of  the  Greek 
Empire  (cf.  like  commissions  to  Burgundians,  Goths,  and 
Franks,  §§  564,  566,  599).  Odovaker  gathered  Roman  philoso- 
phers and  men  of  letters  about  him,  and  tried  to  establish 
firm  order  and  good  government ;  but  he  was  soon  attacked  by 
another  more  powerful  German  people  (§  577). 


C.   The  East-Gothic  Kingdom. 

575.  The  Ostrogoths  before  they  entered  Italy.  —  When  the 
West  Goths  sought  refuge  south  of  the  Danube  in  376  a.d.,  an 
eastern  division  of  the  same  race  had  submitted  to  the  Huns. 
These  East  Goths  (Ostrogoths)  recovered  their  independence 
on  the  death  of  Attila;  and  for  a  generation  now  they  had 
dwelt  within  the  Danubian  provinces  of  the  Eastern  Empire, 
sometimes  as  allies,  sometimes  as  enemies.  Their  young  king, 
TJieodoric,  had  been  brought  up  as  a  hostage  at  the  imperial 
court.  He  had  felt  the  charm  of  Roman  civilization  and 
adopted  its  culture,  but,  with  it  all,  he  remained  a  typical 
Teutonic  hero  —  of  gigantic  stature  and  romantic  temper,  a 
matchless  warrior,  impetuous  in  strife  and  wise  in  counsel  — 
the  kingliest  figure  of  all  the  centuries  of  the  invasions. 

576.  The  Conquest  of  Italy.  —  In  489  a.d.  Theodoric  asked 
leave  from  Zeno  to  reconquer  Italy  for  the  Empire.  Zeno  was 
glad  to  get  rid  of  him  and  to  destroy  barbarian  by  barbarian. 
With  magnificent  ceremonial  he  appointed  Theodoric  patrician, 
and  gave  the  desired  commission.  Odovaker  made  a  gallant 
resistance  for  fpur  years.     Theodoric  beat  him  at  Verona  in  a 


576] 


ITALY   AND  THE  EASTERN  EMPIRE. 


475 


great  battle,^  and  then  besieged  him  in  the  impregnable  fortress 
of  Ravenna.     Odovaker  finally  surrendered  on  terms  of  friend- 


Church  of  San  Vitale  at  Ravenna  (time  of  Theodoric  the  Great) . 

ship,  but  soon  after  was  murdered  at  a  banquet,  on  some  sus- 
picion, by  Theodoric's  own  hand  —  the  one  sad  blot  on  the 
great  Goth's  fame. 


1  Where  Theodoric  earned  his  name  Dietrich  (Theodoric)  of  Bern  (Verona). 


476         INVASIONS  — FIFTH  AND   SIXTH   CENTURIES.       [§577 

577.  "Theodoric  the  Civilizer,"  493-526  a.d. — Then  began 
a  Gothic  kingdom  in  Italy,  like  the  Teutonic  states  in  Spain 
and  Burgundy,  and  one  that  deserved  a  better  fate  than  was 
to  befall  it.  The  Ostrogoths  had  come  in  as  a  nation,  with 
women  and  children.  They  took  a  third  of  the  lands  of  Italy 
(which  had  been  held  by  the  mercenaries  of  Odovaker),  but  all 
the  rights  of  the  Roman  population  were  respected  scrupu- 
lously. Goth  and  Eoman  lived  in  harmony  side  by  side,  each 
under  his  own  law.     Cities  were  rebuilt  and  new  ones  founded, 


SkPUI.CHKK   01-'    THKOJXilt] 


(tki:at  at  Kavkxxa. 


with  a  new  period  of  architectural  glory.  Public  works  were 
restored.  The  subdivision  of  the  land  into  small  estates  led  to 
a  revival  of  agriculture.  Theodoric's  long  reign  was  peaceful, 
prosperous,  and  happy,  and  Italy  began  to  recover  something 
of  her  former  greatness. 

678.  The  "Empire**  of  Theodoric  the  Great.  —  Theodoric,  too, 
was  the  center  of  an  informal  alliance  extending  over  all  the 
Teutonic  west.  His  wife  was  a  Frankish  princess ;  the  Bur- 
gundian  and  Visigothic  kings  were  his  sons-in-law;  his  .sister 
was  married  to  the  king  of  the  Vandals.  All  these  states 
recognized  a  certain  preeminence  in  Theodoric,  and  it  seemed 


z^^ 



r^    \^\       >-              \    ) 

■^'^ 

\ 

r^  /^<r   \           "^     \  J 

v^--"^ 

\ 

i^O<^              \                       "^        0             \/ 

^><^      ^ 

\ 

>{^          \      j^     ^    ^      Jr^ 

-v   ' 

V 

^^   A^:A^^<x^ 

/       ^      : 

^^^ 

\ 

rJ-f-  r^  x^.Af^^^'PM 

^i^-4^?- 

\ 

\  [%:>-/^  t^m 

<  ,.-^^, 

\ 

)^><yh  <jW^ 

\ 

^ 

^    7^^      f  %    \:r^  }t 

\         ^^^^ 

^^ 

^"''^ 

\    y           (  v\  V   \l 

\_.,--— ■"''^ 

^^-'"^"^ 

\   \             ^\  ""  jk.^L^^ 

'\             ("i 

s 

¥i  ^/^(m4H 

A  /. 

y                /'3r— -""''>'                                \     ^  i'^        tl                           5      *     S     ».     ^-5 

:^:n\        /^     / 

=?WW     PM  f^^^=S3-7v^ 

v^ 

— s^ 

( %  #  > 

ru^-y^ 

\- 

V 

fp7 

\i 

// 

J-^ 

s 

(T 

?v  **'^  C  ^^^1  Jf^ 

I  / 

~^. 

r 

'«      ^s^.,^,,.,,^^  "'l—                         Lj''~^* 

Vj' 

o 

^ 

A 

-J 

^Jjjlj^ 

/ 

« 

'^'^ 

\ 

^        1 

"^    //    !3^  r'^  ^fi^ 

J 

1 

"%¥ 

r 

b 

< 

1 

i 

1 1 

>   ^    1 

^ 

'^J 

-^     Mffhifi } 

~«      o     7'' 

/^^^v^\ 

»- 1  i  -5] 

^^ 

/ 

1 

8 

y^ 

^               1 

~  / 

/  ^ 

__^^ — ? ?_ 

--.  1 

§  581]  ITALY  AND  THE   EASTERN  EMPIRE.  477 

as  though  he  were  about  to  reunite  the  West  into  a  great  Teu- 
tonic empire,  and  so  anticipate  Charles  the  Great  (§§  636-649) 
by  three  centuries. 

579.  Elements  of  Weakness  in  the  Gothic  State.  —  After  all, 
however,  the  Goths  were  strangers  ruling  a  vastly  larger 
Roman  population.  More  serious  still,  they  were  Arians. 
Theodoric  had  shown  a  perfect  toleration  for  the  orthodox 
Christians  (Catholics),  but  it  was  unbearable  to  the  more 
zealous  of  these  to  be  ruled  by  a  heretic  race.  Theodoric's 
last  years  were  shadowed  by  plots  among  the  Eomans  to  bring 
in  the  orthodox  eastern  power ;  and  the  night  after  his  death, 
so  it  was  told,  a  holy  hermit  saw  his  soul  flung  down  the  crater 
of  Stromboli.  A  strong  successor  perhaps  could  yet  have  main- 
tained the  state ;  but  Theodoric  left  only  a  daughter,  and  the 
Goths  at  once  fell  into  factions  among  themselves. 

D.   Revival  of  the  Empire. 

580.  The  "Greek"  or  Byzantine  Empire.  —  The  parts  of  the 
empire  peculiarly  Latin  had  now  fallen  in  pieces.  There  was 
left  the  empire  east  of  the  Adriatic.  This  part  had  always 
been  essentially  Greek  in  culture  (§  §  391,  491,  492) ;  and  though 
ifc  called  itself  Roman  for  the  next  ten  centuries  down  to  its 
fall,  we  commonly  speak  of  it  as  the  Greek  Empire.  Separated 
now  from  the  west,  it  rapidly  grew  more  and  more  Oriental  in 
character.  It  preserved  Greek  learning,  and  warded  off  Persian 
and  Arabian  conquest,  but  it  did  not  otherwise  influence  West- 
ern Europe  greatly  after  the  first  few  centuries. 

581.  Slav  Invasions  in  the  East.  —  When  Theodoric  led  his 
Goths  into  Italy,  he  left  the  line  of  the  Danube  open  to  the 
more  savage  Slavs  (§  569).  That  people  had  been  filtering  into 
the  East,  as  the  Teutons  had  done  in  the  West,  as  slaves,  coloni, 
and  mercenaries ;  and  now,  in  493  a.d.,  came  their  first  real 
invasion.  Then,  for  a  generation,  successive  hordes  poured  in, 
penetrating  as  far  as  Greece,  until  Eastern  Europe  also  seemed 


478         INVASIONS  — FIFTH  AND   SIXTH   CENTURIES.       [§582 

lost  to  the  Empire.  Even  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  Con- 
stantinople was  saved  only  by  a  seventy-eight-mile  Long  Wall 
that  protected  the  narrow  tongue  of  land  on  which  the  capital 
stood. 

582.  Restoration  and  Reconquests.  —  At  length,  a  century  and 
a  half  after  Theodosius  the  Great,  another  strong  ruler  arose 
at  Constantinople.  Justinian  (527-565  a.d.)  renewed  the  old 
frontier  of  the  Danube,  saved  Europe  from  a  threatened  Persian 
conquest,  and  then  turned  to  restore  the  imperial  power  in  the 
West.  He  reconquered  Africa,  the  Mediterranean  islands,  and 
part  of  Spain. ;  and  of  course  he  caught  eagerly  at  the  condi- 
tions in  Italy,  after  the  death  of  Theodoric,  to  regain  that  land 
and  the  ancient  Roman  capital.  His  generals,  Belisarius  and 
Narses,  were  victorious  here  also,  but  only  after  a  dreadful 
twenty  years'  war  that  destroyed  at  once  the  Gothic  race  and 
the  rising  greatness  of  the  peninsula.  Rome  itself  was  sacked 
once  more  (by  the  Gothic  king,  Totila,  546  a.d.),  and  left  for 
eleven  days  absolutely  uninhabited.^ 

583.  The  Justinian  Code.  —  Justinian  is  best  remembered  for 
his  work  in  bringing  about  the  codification  of  the  Roman  law. 
In  the  course  of  centuries  that  law  had  become  an  intolerable 
maze.  Julius  Caesar  had  planned  its  codification.  Theodosius 
II.  (§  573)  had  made  a  beginning  a  century  before  Justinian ; 
and  now,  in  an  incredibly  short  time,  a  commission  of  great 
lawyers  gave  to  the  whole  body  of  the  law  a  marvelous  sym- 
metry, brevity,  and  perspicuity.  The  work  comprised  the  Code, 
or  laws  proper,  the  Digest,  based  upon  the  multitudinous 
"  opinions  "  of  the  great  lawyers  of  the  past,  and  the  Institutes, 
a  kind  of  text-book  upon  the  principles  of  Roman  law. 

The  reconquest  of  Italy  by  Justinian  established  the  Code 
in  that  land.  Thence,  in  later  centuries,  it  spread  over  the 
West,  becoming  the  foundation  of  all  modern  legal  study  in 
continental  Europe,  and  the  basis  of  nearly  all  codes  of  law 

1  Read  the  story  of  this  struggle  in  Kingsley's  Roman  and  Teuton. 


§  585]  ITALY   AND  THE   EASTERN   EMPIRE.  479 

now  in  existence.  Says  Iline  {Early  Rome,  2),  "Every  one  of 
us  is  benefited  directly  or  indirectly  by  this  legacy  of  the 
Roman  people  —  a  legacy  as  valuable  as  the  literary  and  ar- 
tistic models  which  we  owe  to  the  great  writers  and  sculptors 
of  Greece."  And  Woodrow  Wilson  declares  {The  State,  158) 
that  Roman  Law  "has  furnished  Europe  with  many,  i/ no^ 
most,  of  her  principles  of  private  right/'  * 

E.   The  Jjombards  in  Italy. 

584.  Invited  by  Narses.  —  Among  the  mercenaries  with  whom 
Narses  had  conquered  the  Goths  were  bands  of  Lombards, 
a  new  German  people  who  had  crossed  the  Danube  into  the 
Eastern  Empire  when  the  East  Goths  moved  on  into  Italy. 
Narses  had  been  made  governor  of  Italy  with  the  title  of 
exarch,  and  with  his  capital  at  Ravenna.  After  the  death  of 
Justinian,  it  is  said,  he  found  that  enemies  at  the  imperial 
court  were  plotting  his  ruin,  and  in  revenge  he  invited  the 
Lombard  nation  to  seize  Italy  for  themselves. 

585.  Final  Break-up  of  Italian  Unity.  —  In  568  a.d.  these  new 
invaders  entered  the  land,  and  soon  occupied  the  greater  part 
of  it.  Their  chief  kingdom  was  in  the  Po  valley,  which  ever 
since  has  kept  the  name  Lombardy,  while  Lombard  "duke- 
doms "  were  scattered  over  other  parts  of  the  peninsula.  The 
Empire  retained  (1)  the  Exarchate  of  Ravenna  on  the  Adri- 
atic, (2)  Rome,  with  a  little  surrounding  territory  on  the  west 
coast,  and  (3)  the  extreme  south.  This  last  was  to  remain 
Greek  for  centuries. 

1  Cf.  §§463  and  500.  English  and  American  law  is  always  regarded,  prop- 
erly, as  having  a  very  distinct  origin  ;  but  Roman  law  profoundly  affected 
legal  development  even  in  England,  and  so  in  the  United  States,  while  the  law 
of  Louisiana  came  very  directly  from  it  through  the  French  code.  On  Roman 
Law,  advanced  students  may  consult  Hadley,  Introduction  to  Roman  Law, 
and  the  noted  forty-fourth  chapter  of  Gibbon.  "Wilson's  The  State,  pp.  142- 
159,  gives  an  excellent  account  of  its  growth,  and  pp.  160, 161,  a  full  bibliogra- 
phy for  advanced  students.  A  good  treatment  of  Justinian's  work  is  given 
also  in  Bury,  bk.  iv.  ch.  iii. 


480  INVASIONS  — FIFTH   AND   SIXTH   CENTURIES.       [§  586 

Thus  the  middle  land  which  Roman  and  Teuton  had  strug- 
gled for  through  two  centuries  was  at  last  divided  between 
them,  and  shattered  into  fragments  in  the  process.  Italy 
ceased  to  be  a  state  for  thirteen  centuries,  and  was  not  again 
united  until  1870. 

IV.   THE   FRANKS. 

586.  Preeminence  among  the  Teutonic  Conquerors.  —  The  re- 
lation of  the  Franks  on  the  lower  Rhine  to  the  early  invasions 
has  been  noted  (§  568).  Their  real  advance  began  almost  at 
the  time  of  the  rise  of  the  East  Goths  —  eighty  years  later 
than  the  making  of  the  Vandal,  Burgundian,  and  Visigothic 
kingdoms,  and  as  much  earlier  than  the  Lombard  kingdom. 
To  them  fell  the  work  of  consolidating  the  Teutonic  states 
into  a  mighty  empire.  Their  final  success  was  due,  in  the 
main,  to  two  causes. 

a.  They  did  not  migrate  to  distant  lands,  but  only  expanded 
from  their  original  home ;  hence  their  state  kept  a  sound  basis 
for  its  power  in  an  unmixed  Teutonic  element,  while  the  other 
conquering  nations  lost  themselves  in  the  larger  Roman  popu- 
lations among  whom  they  settled. 

h.  When  they  adopted  Christianity,  it  was  the  orthodox  in- 
stead of  the  Arian  form  ;  this  not  only  gained  them  support 
in  their  wars,  but  it  did  away  for  them  with  a  standing  cause 
of  jealousy  that  existed  between  the  other  Teutons  and  their 
subjects. 

587.  Clovis;  Early  Conquests.  —  Until  nearly  500  a.d.  the 
Franks  were  pagans.  Nor  were  they  yet  a  nation,  but  were 
split  into  petty  divisions  without  a  common  king.  The 
founder  of  their  greatness  was  Clovis  (Clodowig,  Louis).     In 

481  A.D.,  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  he  became  king  of  a  petty  tribe 
near  the  mouth  of  the  Rhine.  In  486  he  attacked  the  Roman 
possessions  in  North  Gaul,  and,  after  a  victory  at  Soissons, 
added  them  to  his  kingdom.  Ten  years  later  he  conquered  the 
Alemanni,  who  had  invaded  Gaul,  in  a  great  battle  near  Strass- 
burg,  and  made  tributary  their  territory  beyond  the  Rhine. 


r 

ia       Longitude    West    10     from    Greenwich      5                                      0                                      5        Longitude    Eas 

p 

/                           1            »"    '^'d              ~^         / 

« 

---C^         / 

/                     "/                   /                  /                                                             ^ 

'        / 

^  ^II?"^^^^-^^^                     h 

fp      ^  i^  \/\  ^'^  / 

%s 

/ 

'  P'^MiJ^  /^ 

_\ 

/          ^ 

5o.j 

50 

■~~^-^y_^^ 

/                f^^^r^^^'^T'Cr      <^«^4^'^" — *^^ 

/  ^ 

/  '^ 

/              /    — — -/— ^^'L— .^t'  "S"^^^^^ 

/                                  /                '•^'Tl^JC,         ofiUieimJyN^l^^i^^^ 

1 

/ 

/                l^^^    i^^'^-^x/T       /  ' 

/ 

/                    /  ^^^""■'*    ^T  z-^^v  r  ^  fii^"^^- 

/ 

/ 

/                 /          >^!r'^°iZir'"^'^ '' — "v'^'^^*-^)  xT"^  ^'^^^-j^y 

45 

r— ^-^L^^_^ 

7^-^-^____^                /                            ^          '                W        1^*^^  ^^^^  ./-TLOM 

^^^^"^--^ 

. 

/               ~~~     ~~ — " — r— — — — _          ^                    ^        VpiANS     /■' 

"     / 

'                                     /                              ViT^ — ^           V^tyons       L.-v^" 

/                            1*  W|-«leaux;j              rWl|43-534^< 

:/ 

40 

■ — ^-^^^Z 

/     ''  /^^'■"^""ft^'^'-vw^v-^^  ^!l!L        .^^^                                      V 

^      // 

\~^~~~~--rL^Jy^'       ^  .^^^If^ra^o                                         ^ 

^          % 

y-^^— v^Xx^^^j^iX^    ^^         /^           O?   ^                 (J'andate)!, 

^   /    ^ 

^  / 

V,^'^-— --v/^  >i  ^_^^^   -i.-v_,^ 

35 

^/~~'~^— - 

--/\-^--^S.^^                           '  '•  ^ 

/ 

a^;                 r 

/            /                    ^~~~ rr»^=-~-__ \         ' 

10 

5                                                              0                                                             5 

After  607  the  Kingdom  of  the  West  Ooths  i:. 

from    Gr-cuwich  15 


25 


1  ^ 

THE 
GERMANIC    KINtiDOltS 

ESTABLISHED  ON 

ROMAN   SOIL 

Close  of  Fifth  Oentury 

(Britain  iu  Sixth  Century) 

SCALE  OF   MILES 

6         50      100  200.  300  400 


> 


s    i^'^^^l 


pa 


o  r 


I>ST 


Aquileja 


C^\  N-     S 


idua 


\ 


TaiaiitO/ 


1^ 

rCarthage 


^ 


T    H 


S       ^ 


A 


yf^^^ 


aitedjlo  a.8mall  Boutben  strip  (Septimania)^ 


§  689]  THE   FRANKS.  481 

588.  The  Conversion  of  Clovis  to  Catholic  Christianity.' — The 

real  importance  of  the  battle  of  Strassburg  lies  in  this  —  that  it 
was  the  occasion  for  the  conversion  of  Clovis.  His  wife, 
Clotilda,  was  a  Burgundian  princess,  but,  unlike  most  of  her 
nation,  she  was  a  devout  Catholic.  In  a  crisis  in  the  battle, 
Clovis  had  vowed  to  serve  the  God  of  Clotilda  if  He  would 
grant  him  victory ;  and  in  consequence  he  and  three  thousand 
of  his  warriors  were  baptized  immediately  afterward. 

This  fact  was  vital  in  both  the  religious  and  political  history 
of  Europe.  Clovis  was  influenced,  no  doubt,  by  keen  political 
insight.  In  the  coming  struggles  with  the  Arian  Goths  and 
Burgundians,  it  would  be  of  immense  advantage  to  have  the 
subject  Roman  populations  on  his  side,  as  an  orthodox  sovereign, 
against  their  own  hated  heretic  rulers.  The  conversion  was  a 
chief  agency,  therefore,  in  building  up  the  great  Frankish  state. 
Another  result  was  not  so  easily  foreseen :  the  rising  Frankish 
kingdom  came  into  intimate  union  with  the  rising  bishops  of 
Rome ;  and  so  this  conversion  was  to  prove  a  factor  in  building 
up  the  ecclesiastical  headship  of  the  Papacy  and  its  temporal 
power  (§  632). 

589.  Later  Conquests  of  Clovis  and  his  Sons ;  the  Frankish  Em- 
pire of  the  Seventh  Century.  —  His  conversion  furnished  Clovis 
with  a  pretext  for  new  advances.  Declaring  it  intolerable  that 
those  "Arian  dogs"  should  possess  the  fairest  provinces  of 
Gaul,  he  attacked  both  Burgundians  and  Visigoths,  driving  the 
latter  for  the  most  part  beyond  the  Pyrenees.  Then,  by  a 
horrible  series  of  bloody  treacheries  during  the  remainder  of  his 
thirty  years'  reign,  he  got  rid  of  the  many  kings  of  the  other 
Franks,  and  consolidated  that  whole  people  under  his  sole  rule. 
"  Thus,"  says  the  pious  chronicler,  Gregory  of  Tours,  "  did  God 
daily  deliver  the  enemies  of  Clovis  into  his  hand,  because  he 
walked  before  His  face  with  an  upright  heart."  His  sons  com- 
pleted the  subjugation  of  Burgundy,  and  added  Bavaria  and 

1  Advanced  students  will  enjoy  looking  up  Gregory  of  Tours'  delightfully 
na'ive  account,  il.  30.    Compare  with  the  conversion  of  Constantine. 


482         INVASIONS  —  FIFTH  AND   SIXTH  CENTURIES.      [§690 

Thuringia  to  the  realm  —  the  last  two  on  the  German  side  of 
the  Rhine,  beyond  the  old  Roman  world. 

590.   The  Empire  of  the  Franks  under  the  Later  Merovingians.  — 

So  in  fifty  years,  mainly  through  the  cool  intellect  and  ferocious 
energy  of  one  brutal  savage,  a  little  Teutonic  tribe  had  grown 
into  the  great  Frankish  state,  including  nearly  the  whole  of 
modern  France,  the  Netherlands,  Switzerland,  and  Germany 
almost  to  the  Elbe  (except  for  the  lands  of  the  heathen  Saxons 
toward  the  mouth  of  that  river).  Such  territory  to-day  would 
make  the  greatest  power  in  Europe.  In  the  sixth  and  seventh 
centuries  its  preeminence  was  even  more  marked.  Gothic 
Spain  was  weakened  by  quarrels  between  Arian  and  Catholic, 
Italy  torn  to  shreds,  Britain  in  chaos  (§  591),  non-Frankish 
Germany  filled  with  savage,  unorganized  tribes.  The  only 
real  rivals  of  the  Frankish  state  were  the  Greek  Empire  and 
a  new  Mohammedan  power  just  rising  in  Arabia  (§  620  ff.), 
soon  to  contest  Europe  with  both  Greek  and  Frank. 

The  family  of  Clovis  is  known,  from  one  of  his  ancestors,  as 
Merovingian.  It  kept  the  throne  for  over  two  centuries  after 
Clovis'  death.  In  the  first  half  of  the  period  the  rulers  were 
commonly  men  of  ruthless  energy.  In  the  second  half  they  be- 
came mere  phantom  kings,  and  all  real  authority  was  exercised 
by  great  nobles  who  finally  replaced  them  with  a  new  royal  line 
(§  633).  The  two  hundred  years  make  a  dismal  story  of  greed, 
family  hate,  treacherous  assassination,  unbridled  licentiousness, 
monotonous  brutality.  Few  chapters  in  history  are  so  unattrac- 
tive. The  empire  was  divided  among  the  four  sons  of  Clovis ; 
reunited  under  a  survivor,  by  methods  similar  to  those  of  Clovis 
himself ;  and  then  again  divided ;  and  so  on  for  long  periods. 
Some  sense  of  underlying  unity,  however,  was  preserved,  and  for 
long  the  superior  claims  of  the  family  of  Clovis  to  rule  all  the 
Teutonic  parts  of  the  dominion  that  he  had  founded  were  prac- 
tically unquestioned.  The  Franks  themselves,  however,  spread 
very  little  south  of  the  Loire :  North  and  South  Gaul  remained 
distinct  in  blood  and  character  (§§  616,  618,  619,  625). 


591]  BRITAIN.  483 


V.   BRITAIN. 

591.  The  Conquerors  and  the  Early  Kingdoms ;  the  Victory 
exceedingly  Slow.  —  The  Teutonic  conquest  of  Britain  differed 
widely  from  that  of  the  Continent.  In  the  later  period  of 
Eoman  rule,  fierce  Saxon  pirates  had  begun  to  harass  the 
eastern  coasts  cruelly,  swooping  down  in  their  swift  barks  tc 
burn,  slay,  and  plunder ;  then  sacrificing  to  Woden  on  the  shore 
a  tenth  of  their  captives,  and  vanishing  as  swiftly  as  they  came.^ 
When  the  Roman  legions  were  finally  withdrawn  in  408  a.d., 
to  defend  Italy  against  Alaric,  the  inhabitants  of  the  island 
were  left  exposed  both  to  these  German  marauders  and  to  the 
untamed  Celts  beyond  the  northern  wall.  The  despairing 
Britons  called  in  the  German  raiders  to  beat  off  the  other  foe, 
and  these  dangerous  protectors  soon  began  to  seize  the  land 
for  themselves.  The  chief  invading  tribes  were  the  Jutes 
from  the  Danish  peninsula  (Jutland),  and  the  Saxons  and 
Angles  (English)  from  its  base.  The  Jutes  made  the  first  per- 
manent settlement,  about  the  middle  of  the  century  (449  a.d.), 
in  southeastern  Britain.  The  Saxons  occupied  the  southern 
shore,  and  the  Angles  the  eastern,  carving  out  numerous  petty 
states  in  a  long  series  of  crnel  campaigns.  Gradually  these 
little  units  were  welded  into  larger  kingdoms,  until  there 
appeared  seven  prominent  Teutonic  states :  Kent,  the  king- 
dom of  the  Jutes ;  Sussex,  Essex,  and  Wessex  (kingdoms  of 
the  South  Saxons,  East  Saxons,  and  West  Saxons),  and  the 
English  kingdoms  of  East  Anglia,  Northumbria,  and  Mercia. 
We  sometimes  call  the  group  of  seven  kingdoms  The  Heptarchy. 

It  was  600  A.D.  before  the  German  states  had  spread  them- 
selves over  the  eastern  half  of  the  island,  after  one  hundred 
and  fifty  years  of  incessant  war.  This  is  a  striking  contrast 
to  the  rapid  occupation  of  Gaul  and  Spain.  The  causes  and 
the  result  of  the  difference  are  noteworthy. 

1  Church's  Count  of  the  Saxon  Shore  is  a  readable  novel  dealing  with  this 
period  of  England's  history. 


484         INVASIONS  — FIFTH  AND   SIXTH  CENTURIES.       [§592 

592.  The  Causes  of  the  Delay  concern  both  Britain  itself  and 
the  invaders.  The  Saxons  at  home  were  living  in  petty  tribes 
under  no  common  government,  and  therefore  they  could  make 
no  great  organized  attack ;  coming  by  sea,  too,  they  necessarily 
came  in  small  bands,  not  in  a  vast  army.  Moreover,  they  were 
still  pagans,  and,  unlike  even  the  Franks,  untouched  by  Roman 
culture,  so  that  they  appeared  as  ruthless  destroyers  and  pro- 
voked a  desperate  resistance.  At  the  same  time,  Britain  was 
less  completely  Romanized  than  were  the  continental  provinces ; 
there  was  more  of  forest  and  marsh,  and  a  less  extensive  net- 
work of  Roman  roads;  hence  the  natives  found  it  easier  to 
make  repeated  stands,  —  and  those  natives,  too,  had  probably 
not  so  completely  laid  aside  military  habits  as  had  the  Gauls. 

593.  Result :  England  preeminently  a  Teutonic  State.  —  Be- 
cause the  conquest  was  so  slow,  it  was  thorough.  England 
alone,  of  all  the  Roman  provinces  seized  by  the  Teutons,  be- 
came strictly  a  Teutonic  state.  In  the  eastern  half  of  the  island 
in  particular,  Roman  political  and  legal  institutions,  the  Roman 
language,  Christianity,  even  Roman  names  for  the  most  part, 
vanished,  and  the  Romanized  natives  were  slain,  driven  out, 
or  enslaved. 

594.  Conversion  to  Christianity,  and  Three  Results.  —  About 
the  year  600,  Christianity  first  began  to  win  its  way  among 
these  heathen  conquerors.  In  the  north  of  England,  the 
early  missionaries  came  mainly  from  the  old  (Celtic)  Christian 
Church  still  surviving  in  western  Britain  and  in  Ireland,  and 
long  cut  off  from  close  connection  with  the  rest  of  Christen- 
dom ;  the  south,  on  the  other  hand,  was  converted  by  mission- 
aries sent  out  directly  by  the  Pope  of  Rome ;  and  the  rulers 
of  the  north  were  soon  brought  to  accept  this  better  organized 
form  of  Christianity.  The  victory  of  the  Roman  Church  dates 
from  the  famous  Council  of  Whitby  in  Northumbria,  in  664  a.d. 

Three  political  results  followed  the  conversion :  — 
a.   Warfare  with  the  native  Britons  became  milder  and  more 
like  ordinary  wars  between  rival  states. 


§594]  BRITAIN.  485 

h.  The  ecclesiastical  union  of  the  island  foreshadowed  and 
helped  to  create  the  later  political  union. 

c.  The  adoption  of  the  same  form  of  Christianity  and  the 
same  church  government  as  that  on  the  Continent  brought  the 
island  back  into  the  general  current  of  European  development. 


For  Further  Reading  on  the  Chapter.  — The  sources  are  not  avail- 
able except  Gregory  of  Tours  for  the  Franks,  the  first  real  history  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Modern  authorities  :  Hodgkin's  Theodoric  (Heroes) ;  Kings- 
ley's  Boman  and  Teuton ;  Sheppard's  Fall  of  Borne ;  Bradley's  Goths 
(Nations)  ;  Curteis'  Boman  Empire,  48-54  and  95-209 ;  Green's  English 
People^  opening  chapters;  Bryce's  Holy  Boman  Empire^  chs.  ii.  and  iii.; 
Freeman's  Historical  Geography^  87-110;  Sergeant's  Franks  (Nations); 
Adams'  Civilization  during  the  Middle  Ages;  Church's  Beginning  of 
the  Middle  Ages;  Church's  Early  Britain;  Oman's  Byzantine  Empire 
(Nations),  chs.  vi.-vii.;  Emerton's  Introduction  to  the  Middle  Ages; 
Church's  Count  of  the  Saxon  Shore  and  Dahn's  Felicitas  (Novels). 

For  advanced  students  :  Hodgkin's  Italy  (7  volumes)  ;  Bury's  Later 
Boman  Empire  ;  Green's  Making  of  England ;  Freeman's  Chief  Periods 
(Lectures  III.  and  IV.),  Goths  at  Bavenna  (Essays,  3d  series),  and 
Franks  (Essays,  1st  series). 

Exercise.  —  For  review,  trace  each  barbarian  people  from  the  cross- 
ing of  the  barriers  to  the  last  mention  in  this  period.  Trace  the  history 
of  Gaul,  Italy,  and  Spain,  through  the  period,  noting  for  each  land  what 
peoples  left  important  elements  in  race  or  institutions.  In  both  exercises, 
the  device  of  catchwords  may  be  used  with  advantage  ;  and  students  may 
be  encouraged  to  prepare  tables,  showing,  in  separate  columns,  the 
peoples,  events,  leaders,  dates,  etc.  List  battles,  with  leaders  and  dates, 
for  rapid  "  fact-drills."  The  field  is  a  good  one  for  exercises  calling  for 
historical  imagination  (p.  198). 

Special  Reports.  —  1.  The  "  Fall "  of  Rome,  476  a.d.  (Besides  other 
authorities,  see  Bryce's  Holy  Boman  Empire,  ch.  iii. ;  Freeman's  review 
of  Bryce  in  Essays,  3d  series  ;  Hodgkin,  II.  ch.  viii. :  Bury,  preface  and 
bk.  iii.  ch.  v.)  2.  Aetius  (Freeman  in  English  Historical  Bevieio, 
July,  1887,  if  accessible).  3.  Attila's  pretexts  (Bury,  I.  175).  4.  A 
glimpse  of  Hun  life  (Bury,  I.  213-223).  6.  Anecdotes  of  Pope 
Gregory  and  the  English  prisoners ;  Augustine's  Mission ;  Queen  Ber- 
tha's work  (cf.  Clotilda  in  Gaul).  6.  Stories  of  the  Celtic  monks 
in  North  England.        7.    Council  of  Whitby. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  STATE  OF  EUROPE,  600-800  AD. 

I.    THE  DARK  AGES.i 

595.  The  Dark  Ages.  —  After  all  allowances  are  made 
(§§  597,  599),  the  invasions  of  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries 
remain  the  most  remarkable  catastrophe  that  ever  affected  a 
civilized  society.  It  took  long  to  restore  order.  The  seventh 
and  eighth  centuries  are  a  dreary  period  of  confusion,  law- 
lessness, and  ignorance  —  the  lowest  point  ever  reached  by 
European  civilization.  To  these  four  centuries,  if  to  any,  the 
name  Dark  Ages  may  be  applied.  There  was  no  tranquil 
leisure  and  therefore  no  study.  There  was  little  security  and 
therefore  little  labor.  While  the  Franks  and  Goths  were 
learning  the  rudiments  of  civilized  life,  the  Latins  were  losing 
all  but  the  rudiments  —  and,  for  a  time,  losing  faster  than  the 
Germans  gained.  To  the  old  causes  of  decay,  two  new  ones 
were  added :  the  indifference  and  ignorance  of  the  new  ruling 
classes,  few  of  whom  could  read  or  write,  and  the  growing 
divergence  between  the  new  spoken  language  and  the  literary 
language.  Classical  literature,  long  sinking  anyway,  sud- 
denly became  extinct.  The  old  Eoman  schools  finally  dis- 
appeared, or  were  represented  only  by  new  monastic  schools 
with  meagre  and  formal  instruction  in  the  merest  rudiments. 

At  the  same  time  the  old  Koman  civilization,  in  many  obscure 
ways,  did  survive,  and  new  institutions  slowly  grew  up  to 
mold  medieval^  Europe  into  form  once  more  (§§   596-615). 

1  Read  Church's  Beginning  of  the  Middle  Ages,  ch.  ii.  (last  part)  and  ch.  iii. 

2  The  in-pouring  of  the  Teutons  between  376  and  476  is  sometimes  said  to 
close  Ancient  History.  Those  who  speak  in  this  way  divide  history  into 
Ancient,  Medieval,  and  Modern,  and  give  the  name  Medieval  to  the  period 

486 


§  597]     BARBARIANS  AND  OLD  ROMAN  CIVILIZATION.        487 


IL    THE  BARBARLAJ^S  AND  THE  OLD  ROMAN  CIVILIZATION. 

596.  Small  Numbers  of  the  Invaders ;  Weak  Resistance  by  Pro- 
vincials. —  A  significant  fact  is  that  the  forces  which  occupied 
the  western  Roman  world  in  the  fifth  century  were  far  smaller 
than  had  been  driven  back  in  rout  many  times  before.  The 
highest  estimate  for  the  whole  Burgundian  nation  is  eighty 
thousand.  The  Vandals  counted  no  more.  The  Visigoths, 
when  they  conquered  Spain,  hardly  exceeded  thirty  thousand 
warriors.  Clovis  commanded  less  than  six  thousand  men 
when  he  annexed  Roman  Gaul. 

The  conquests  (outside  Britain)  were  attended  with  little 
warfare.  When  the  Roman  legions  had  been  beaten  in  the 
field,  the  struggle  was  over.  Those  legions  and  their  com- 
manders were  mainly  German.  The  provincials  were  largely 
so  (§  554),  and  in  any  case  these  last  had  come  to  be  tem- 
porarily indifferent  to  a  change  of  masters.  Nor,  indeed,  did 
it  appear  to  them  at  the  time  that  the  change  differed  materi- 
ally from  the  practice  of  admitting  turbulent "  allies  "  into  the 
empire  —  a  process  that  had  been  going  on  for  centuries. 

The  importance  of  this  previous  slow  occupation,  in  contrast 
with  the  final  swift  conquest,  cannot  be  too  strongly  empha- 
sized. Until  the  last  moment,  it  was  "not  a  torrent  over- 
whelming, but  a  slow,  persistent  force  disintegrating." 

"The  barbarian,"  says  Seeley,  with  some  exaggeration,  of  course, 
"occupied  the  Roman  Empire  almost  as  the  Anglo-Saxon  is  occupying 
North  America:  he  settled  and  peopled  rather  than  conquered  it."  — 
Roman  Imperialism^  56. 

597.  The  relatively  Small  Amount  of  Destruction  outside  Brit- 
ain.^—  The  reverence  of  the  barbarians  for  Rome  has  been 
illustrated  repeatedly  in  the  preceding  pages  (especially  §§  56.4, 
c>QQ>).     Even  Clovis  was  pleased  to  receive  an  appointment  as 

from  about  400  to  about  1500  a.d.    This  book  follows  a  different  classification 
(§§  3,  4) ,  but  it  sometimes  uses  the  expressions  Medieval  and  Middle  Age  as 
descriptive  terms  for  the  period  to  which  they  are  commonly  applied. 
1  For  §§  597-599,  read  Bryce's  Holy  Roman  Empire,  ch.  iii. 


488  THE   STATE  OF  EUROPE,  600-800  A.D.  [§  598 

consul  from  Constantinople.  The  Germans  did  not  wish  to 
destroy,  but  to  possess.  They  were  awed  by  the  marvelous 
devices,  the  massive  structures,  the  stately  pomp,  of  the  civili- 
zation they  had  conquered.  The  mood  is  best  shown  by  the 
exclamation  of  a  Gothic  king  when  first  he  visited  Constanti- 
nople :  "  Without  doubt  the  emperor  is  a  god  on  earth,  and  he 
who  attacks  him  is  guilty  of  his  own  blood." 

These  conditions  helped  to  make  the  destruction  of  the  old 
civilization  on  the  Continent  less  than  we  should  at  first  expect. 
Much  of  course  the  barbarians  did  destroy  —  often  in  the 
wanton  mood  of  children,  as  in  the  story  of  the  warrior  who 
dashed  his  battle-ax  at  the  beautiful  mosaic  floor  to  see 
whether  the  swan  swimming  there  were  alive.  More  was  lost 
because  they  did  not  understand  its  use.  But  the  framework  of 
Koman  society  did  survive,  together  with  many  specific  insti- 
tutions ;  and  most  that  at  the  time  seemed  ruined  was  sooner  or 
later  to  be  recovered  by  the  Teutons  themselves,  —  so  that 

"  almost,  if  not  quite,  every  achievement  of  the  Greeks  and  the  Romans 
in  thought,  science,  law,  and  the  practical  arts,  is  now  a  part  of  our  civili- 
zation —  either  among  the  tools  of  our  daily  life  or  in  the  forgotten  foun- 
dation-stones which  have  disappeared  from  sight  because  we  have  built 
some  more  complete  structure  upon  them."  i 

598.   Relations  between  Teutons  and  the  Roman  Populations.  — 

The  Germans  already  within  the  empire  had  been  largely 
Romanized.  The  new  invaders  settled  among  Roman  popula- 
tions ten  or  fifteen,  or  many  more,  times  their  own  numbers. 
At  first  the  Teutons  made  the  rulers  and  the  bulk  of  the  larger 
landlords.  They  formed  the  aristocratic  forces  in  rural  society. 
The  towns,  with  their  varied  industries,  remained  essentially 
Roman ;  and  the  older  inhabitants  also  furnished  most  of  the 
priests  and  the  secretaries  and  confidential  officers  of  the  con- 
quering lords.  After  a  while  the  two  races  fused  rapidly,  and 
the  Germans  in  the  main  were  assimilated  to  the  older  physi- 
cal type  (outside  of  eastern  Britain  and  northeastern  Gaul). 

1  Adams'  Civilization,  &-10.    Cf .  §§  3  and  269  of  this  book. 


§  600]     BARBARIANS  AND  OLD  ROMAN  CIVILIZATION.       489 

599.  Persistance  of  the  Idea  of  a  Roman  Empire.  —  We  see 

now  that  the  Roman  Empire  had  passed  away  in  the  West 
before  the  year  500.  But  men  of  that  day  did  not  see  it.  They 
could  not  believe  that  the  dominion  of  the  "  Eternal  City  "  was 
dead ;  and  therefore  in  a  most  important  sense  it  did  not  die. 
The  idea  of  Rome's  rule  lived  on  for  three  hundred  years,  until 
it  again  became  external  fact  (§  642).  To  understand  the  sixth, 
seventh,  and  eighth  centuries,  it  is  needful  to  remember  this 
central  truth  of  Freeman's  (condensed  from  his  Historical 
Geography,  106) :  — 

"Teutonic  kings  ruled  in  the  West,  but  nowhere  (except  in  England) 
had  they  become  national  sovereigns  in  the  eyes  of  the  people  of  the  land. 
They  were  simply  the  chiefs  of  their  own  peoples  (Goths,  Franks,  etc.) 
reigning  in  the  midst  of  a  Roman  population  who  looked  to  the  Caesar  of 
New  Borne  (Constantinople)  as  their  lawful  sovereign." 

600.  The  Church  and  the  Barbarians.  —  The  Church  suffered 
a  lowering  of  religious  tone,  due  to  the  imperfect  comprehension 
of  Christianity  by  the  new  converts ;  and  at  the  same  time  it 
gained  power  through  their  superstitious  reverence.  Christi- 
anity raised  the  new  nations,  but  in  the  effort  it  was  dragged 
down  part  way  to  their  level.  More  emphasis  was  placed  on 
ceremonies  and  forms.  The  clergy,  especially  the  higher  clergy, 
became  often  merely  ambitious  and  worldly  lords,  preachers  of 
a  coarse  and  superficial  religion,  men  who  too  often  connived 
at  imposture,  lived  vicious  lives,  and  were  unable  to  understand 
the  services  they  mumbled.  Such  degradation,  in  the  terrible 
calamities  of  those  centuries,  was  to  be  expected.  The  student's 
danger  is  in  overrating  it.  Despite  it  all,  the  truth  remains, 
that  the  Church  and  the  Christian  teaching  was  the  salt  that 
kept  the  world  sweet  for  later  times.  In  the  wildest  disorder 
of  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries,  there  were  found  priests, 
monks,  and  bishops  inspired  with  zeal  for  righteousness  and 
love  for  men,  and  there  were  found  also  in  all  ranks  of  society 
some  willing  followers  of  such  teachers.  The  Church  as  a 
whole  protected  the  weak  and  stood  for  peaceful,  industrious, 
and  right  living. 


490  THE   STATE  OF   EUROPE,  600-800  A.D.  [§  601 

601.  Excursus :  Moral  Preaching  in  the  Dark  Ages.  —  Controversial 
Protestant  writers  have  sometimes  accused  the  Catholic  Church  of  this  age 
of  putting  all  stress  upon  forms  and  of  neglecting  totally  the  duty  of  man 
to  man.  The  charge  is  bitterly  unjust.  Many  sermons  of  the  seventh 
century  place  peculiar  emphasis  upon  good  works.  "  It  is  not  enough," 
says  the  good  Bishop  St.  Eloy,  to  his  flock,  in  a  fervent  exhortation, — 
"It  is  not  enough,  most  dearly  beloved,  for  you  to  have  received  the 
name  of  Christians  if  you  do  not  do  Christian  works.  To  be  called  a 
Christian  profits  him  who  always  retains  in  his  mind  and  fulfills  in  his 
actions  the  commands  of  Christ ;  that  is,  who  does  not  commit  theft.  .  .  . 

"Come,  therefore,  frequently  to  church;  humbly  seek  the  patronage 
of  the  saints  ;  keep  the  Lord's  day  in  reverence  of  the  resurrection  with- 
out any  servile  work  ;  celebrate  the  festivals  of  the  saints  with  devout 
feeling ;  love  your  neighbors  as  yourselves ;  what  you  would  desire  to  be 
done  to  you  by  others,  that  do  you  to  others ;  what  you  would  not  have 
done  to  you,  do  to  no  one ;  before  all  things  have  charity,  for  charity  cov- 
ereth  a  multitude  of  sins ;  be  hospitable,  humble,  casting  your  care  upon 
God,  for  he  careth  for  you ;  visit  the  sick  ;  seek  out  the  captives  ;  receive 
strangers  ;  feed  the  hungry ;  clothe  the  naked ;  set  at  naught  soothsayers 
and  magicians  ;  let  your  weights  and  measures  be  fair,  your  balance  just, 
your  bushel  and  your  pint  honest.  .  .  ."  i 


III.    MONASTICISM. 

602.  Eastern  Hermits  and  Western  Monks.  —  The  eastern 
Church  gave  rise  early  to  a  class  of  ascetics  and  hermits  who 
strove  each  to  save  his  own  soul  by  tormenting  his  body,  and 
by  secluding  himself  from  the  world.^  The  persecutions  in  the 
third  century  augmented  the  numbers  of  these  fugitives  from 
society  more  excusably,  until  the  Egyptian  and  Syrian  deserts 
swarmed  with  tens  of  thousands  of  them.  In  some  cases  they 
came  to  unite  into  small  bodies  with  common  rules  of  life.     In 

1  This  homily  is  printed  at  some  length  by  Maitland  {Dark  Ages,  109  ff .) . 
Curiously  enough,  garbled  extracts  from  just  this  sermon  led  many  historians 
(Robertson,  Hallam,  etc.)  to  deny  any  religion  of  good  works  to  this  age. 
Advanced  students  may  like  to  compare  Robertson's  treatment  {Histoi-y  of 
Charles  V.,  note  xi.  of  the  Proofs  and  Illustrations)  with  Maitland's  refuta- 
tion. Guizot  {Civilization  in  France,  II.  322,  327)  gives  some  good  illus- 
trations of  the  homely  and  practical  preaching  of  the  day  and  its  intensely 
religious  cljsracter.  *  Read  Kingsley's  Hermits. 


§  603]  MONASTICISM.  491 

the  latter  part  of  the  fourth  century  this  idea  of  religious  com- 
munities was  transplanted  to  the  West,  and  the  long  anarchy- 
following  the  invasions  gave  peculiar  inducements  to  such  a 
life  there. 

Thus  arose  one  of  the  most  peculiar  and  powerful  medieval 
institutions.  The  fundamental  causes  in  Europe  were,  first, 
the  longing  on  the  part  of  many  men  for  a  life  of  religious 
contemplation,  and,  second,  the  peculiar  conditions  which,  over 
large  areas,  made  any  quiet  living  impossible  except  through 
some  such  withdrawal  from  society. 

At  the  same  time,  European  monasticism  differed  widely 
from  its  model.  The  monks  in  the  West  did  partake  in  the 
belief  that  holy  living  lay  in  repressing  natural  instincts  and 
affections ;  but  they  never  paralleled  the  worst  excesses  of  the 
East,  and  they  wisely  sought  escape  from  temptation,  even 
within  their  quiet  walls,  not  in  idleness,  but  in  active  and  in- 
cessant work.  Their  very  motto  was,  "  To  work  is  to  pray," 
and  the  old  proverb  of  Satan  and  idle  hands  strikes  a  keynote 
in  Western  monasticism.  The  contrast  typifies  the  difference 
between  the  practical  West  and  the  mystical  East. 

603.  Growth  and  Organization.  —  A  body  of  enthusiasts,  unit- 
ing for  mutual  religious  aid,  would  raise  a  few  rude  buildings 
in  a  pestilential  marsh  or  in  a  wilderness.  Gradually  their 
numbers  grew ;  the  marsh  was  drained,  or  the  desert  became  a 
garden  through  their  toil ;  the  first  plain  structures  gave  way 
to  massive  and  stately  towers;  lords  or  kings  gave  the  mon- 
astery lands;  fugitive  slaves  and  serfs  tilled  them;  perhaps 
villages  or  towns  sprung  up  upon  them  under  the  rule  of  the 
abbot.  Such  was  the  story  of  hundreds  of  early  communities. 
Similar  institutions  for  women  afforded  a  much-needed  refuge 
for  great  numbers  of  that  sex  in  that  troublous  age. 

At  first  each  such  monastery  or  nunnery  was  a  rule  unto 
itself.  Finally  the  various  communities  became  united  in  a 
few  great  brotherhoods.  In  particular,  St.  Benedict,  in  the 
sixth  century,  published  and  preached  rules  for  a  monastic  life 


492  THE  STATE  OF  EUROPE,  600-800  A.D.  [§  604 

that  were  widely  adopted.  Two  hundred  years  later,  nearly  all 
monks  in  Western  Europe  were  Benedictines.  The  order  at  its 
height  is  said  to  have  counted  over  forty  thousand  monasteries. 

604.  The  Three  Vows  and  the  Monastic  Life.  —  Each  Benedic- 
tine took  the  three  vows  of  poverty,  chastity,  and  obedience. 
He  renounced  all  wealth  for  himself  (though  the  monastery 
might  become  wealthy)  ;  he  renounced  marriage;  he  renounced 
his  own  will  in  all  things  in  favor  of  that  of  his  superior  in  the 
monastery  —  the  abbot  or  prior.  To  all  this  was  added  the 
obligation  of  work.  The  monks  were  the  most  skillful  and  in- 
dustrious tillers  of  the  soil ;  they  taught  neighboring  youth  in 
monastic  schools ;  they  lovingly  copied  and  illustrated  manu- 
scripts ;  and  they  themselves  produced  whatever  new  literature 
Europe  had  for  some  centuries.  In  particular,  they  cared  for 
the  poor  and  suffering.  For  centuries  of  disorder  and  violence 
the  monasteries  were  to  Western  Europe  the  only  almshouses, 
inns,  asylums,  hospitals,  and  schools. 

605.  Relation  to  the  Clergy.  —  A  monastery  at  first  was  a 
religious  association  of  laymen;  but  gradually  the  monks  be- 
came the  most  zealous  of  missionaries  and  the  most  devoted 
of  preachers.  As  they  took  on  clerical  character,  there  arose  a 
long  struggle  between  them  and  the  bishops.  The  bishops 
desired  to  exercise  authority  over  them  as  over  other  lower 
clergy ;  the  monks  insisted  upon  independence  under  their  own 
abbots,  and  finally  won  it  in  a  long  series  of  charters.  Because 
subject  to  rule,  the  monks  became  known  as  regular  clergy, 
while  the  ordinary  clergy  were  styled  secular.^ 

IV.    DEVELOPMENT  OF  TEUTONIC   LAW. 

606.  Codes.  —  When  the  barbarians  entered  the  Empire,  their 
law  was  simply  unwritten  custom.     Much  of  it  continued  so, 

1  Good  brief  treatments  of  early  monasticism  will  be  found  in  Curteis  and 
in  Adams,  a  longer  account  in  Guizot,  II.,  or  in  the  Church  histories.  Hen- 
derson's Documents  gives  the  "Rule  of  St.  Benedict." 


§  608]  DEVELOPMENT  OF  TEUTONIC   LAW.  493 

especially  in  England ;  but,  under  the  influence  of  Roman  ideas, 
the  tribes  on  the  Continent  soon  began  to  put  parts  of  their 
law  in  the  form  of  written  codes.  These  throw  interesting 
sidelights  upon  the  times  and  the  men.  Three  points  may  be 
noted  here. 

607.  Personality  of  Law.  —  In  modern  civilized  countries, 
law  is  territorial;  that  is,  all  persons  in  a  given  territory  come 
under  the  law  of  that  land.  But  to  the  Teutons,  even  after 
their  conquests,  law  was  personal.  A  man  carried  his  law  with 
him  wherever  he  went.  It  was  felt  that  a  Roman,  a  Goth,  a 
Burgundian,  even  though  all  were  members  of  the  Frankish 
state,  should  each  be  judged  by  his  own  law. 

608.  Trial  by  Compurgation  or  Ordeal.  —  Proof  rested  not  upon 
evidence  to  the  fact  in  dispute,  but  upon  the  sworn  word  of 
the  accuser  and  accused,  backed  by  their  compurgators  —  not 
witnesses,  but  persons  who  would  swear  they  believed  that  the 
chief  actors  respectively  were  telling  the  truth.^ 

This  system  was  in  a  way  an  appeal  to  the  divine  judgment.^ 
To  speak  falsely  was  to  invite  divine  vengeance,  and  stories 
are  told  of  men  who  fell  dead  with  the  judicial  lie  on  their  lips. 
The  same  idea  was  elaborated  a  little  later  in  two  other  forms 
of  proof  —  the  ordeal  and  the  judicial  combat.  In  the  former, 
the  accused  tried  to  clear  himself  by  the  lot,  by  plunging  his 
arm  into  boiling  water,  by  carrying  red-hot  iron,  by  being 
thrown  bound  into  water,  etc.^    Among  the  noble  classes  the 

1  The  value  of  a  man  as  a  compurgator  depended  upon  his  rank ;  a  noble 
was  worth  several  freemen.  The  number  called  for  depended  also  upon  the 
crime.  According  to  one  code,  three  compurgators  of  a  given  rank  could  free 
a  man  accused  of  murdering  a  serf ;  it  took  seven  if  he  were  accused  of  kill- 
ing a  freeman,  and  eleven  if  a  noble. 

2  The  idea,  and  probably  the  practice  itself,  survives  in  the  boy's  incanta- 
tion, "  Cross  my  heart  and  hope  to  die,"  if  his  word  is  questioned. 

3  For  a  brief  description  of  these  trials,  see  Emerton,  80-87.  Such  tests 
were  sometimes  made  by  deputy;  hence  our  phrase,  "to  go  through  fire  and 
water  "  for  a  friend.  The  byword,  "  he  is  in  hot  water,"  comes  also  from  these 
trials,  and  so,  too,  the  later  test  of  witchcraft  by  throwing  suspected  old 
women  into  a  pond  to  sink  or  float. 


494  THE   STATE  OF  EUROPE,  600-800  A.D.  [§  609 

favorite  method  came  to  be  the  "trial  by  combat,"  —  a  judicial 
duel  which  was  prefaced  by  religious  ceremonies  and  in  which 
God  was  expected  to  "  show  the  right." 

609.  Money  Payments  for  Offences.  —  Warriors  were  too  valu- 
able to  be  lightly  sacrificed,  and  punishment  by  imprisonment 
was  not  in  keeping  with  Teutonic  custom.  Practically  all 
crimes  had  a  money  penalty,  varying  from  a  small  amount  for 
cutting  off  the  joint  of  the  little  finger  to  the  wer-geld  (man- 
money),  or  payment  for  a  man's  life.  It  is  significant  that  the 
fine  for  cutting  off  a  man's  right  arm  was  about  the  same  as 
for  killing  him  outright.  The  wer-geld  varied,  of  course,  with 
the  rank  of  the  victim. 

For  Further  Reading.  — Probably  the  best  brief  treatment  is  in 
Emerton's  Introduction,  73-91 ;  Henderson's  Documents  (314-319)  gives 
a  number  of  formulas  for  ordeals.     See  also  Penn.  Beprints,  IV.  No. '4. 

V.    INFLUENCE   OF  THE   CONQUESTS   UPON  TEUTONIC 
POLITICAL  INSTITUTIONS. 

610.  Kingship  becomes  Hereditary  and  more  Absolute.  —  The 

conquest  modified  Teutonic  institutions  in  many  ways.  In 
particular,  greater  power  fell  to  the  kings.  They  secured  large 
shares  of  confiscated  wealth  and  land,  so  that  they  could  re- 
ward their  immediate  followers  and  build  up  a  still  stronger 
personal  following;  the  Roman  idea  regarding  absolutism  in 
the  head  of  the  state  had  its  influence;  and  their  authority 
grew  by  custom,  since,  in  the  confusion  of  the  times,  multitu- 
dinous matters  were  necessarily  left  to  their  decision.  From 
these  three  factors  it  came  to  pass  that  the  former  war  chiefs 
became  real  sovereigns.^ 

611.  A  New  Territorial  Nobility:  the  Germ  of  the  Later  Feudal 
System.  —  The  old  nobility  of  blood  gave  way  to  a  new  terri- 

1  Clovis  was  a  fairly  despotic  king  before  his  death  ;  a  special  report  upon 
the  vase  of  Soissons  incident  (told  in  all  histories  of  France)  will  show  how 
limited  his  power  was  at  first,  and  also  somewhat  how,  in  war,  a  chief  could 
increase  his  power. 


§613]  ROMAN  AND  TEUTONIC   CONTRIBUTIONS.  495 

torial  nobility  of  office  or  service.  The  higher  ranks  came  in 
part  from  the  old  class  of  "  companions  "  of  the  king  (§  560), 
who  were  now  rewarded  with  grants  of  land  and  intrusted 
with  important  powers  as  governors  of  provinces  (counts  and 
dukes).  So  were  brought  together  the  holding  of  land,  the 
exercise  of  political  power,  and  the  Teutonic  personal  relation 
of  "companion"  and  lord.  This  union  was  to  grow  into 
the  feudal  system,  the  peculiar  organization  of  society  in 
Europe  for  several  hundred  years;  but  the  new  system  was 
not  clearly  established  until  after  the  year  800  a.d. 

612.  The  Popular  Assemblies  decreased  in  Importance  as  the 

power  of  the  kings  and  nobles  grew;  but  such  assemblies 
did  not  at  this  time  altogether  disappear.  In  England  they 
survived  as  occasional  Folk-moots,  and  under  the  Frankish  kings 
as  Mayfield  assemblies. 

VI.     SUMMARY  OF  ROMAN  AND  TEUTONIC  CONTRIBUTIONS. 

The  two  great  streams  of  influence  that  were  to  make  the  modern  world 
had  now  come  in  contact  (§§  3,  4).     Let  us  sum  up  the  elements  of  each. 

613.  TheT^oman  Empire  Contributed: — 

Indirectly : 

a.    The  Greek  intellectual  and  artistic  conceptions,  together 
with  all  that  had  been  preserved  from  the  older  world. 

h.   Christianity. 
Directly : 

c.  A  universal  lan^RpllJ^kommon  medium  of  learning 

and  intercourse  for  cenBHks. 

d.  Roman  law.  ^ 

e.  Municipal  institutions. 

/    The  idea  and  machinery  of  centralized  administration. 
g.   The  conception  of  one  lasting  universal  supreme  authority 
to  which  the  civilized  world  owed  legitimate  obedience. 

Note  that  these  elements  were  not  all  of  them  unmixed  with  evil.  The 
fifth  and  sixth  were,  to  some  degree,  inharmonious  also.  The  last  was 
to  lie  at  the  base  of  the  medieval  Empire  (§§  641,  643)  and  of  the  Papacy. 


496  THE  STATE  OF  EUROPE,  600-800  A.D.  [§  614 

614.  The  Teutons  Contributed:  — 

a.   Themselves  (cf.  theme  sentence  at  the  head  of  Part  VI. 

p.  458). 
h.   The  new  value  of  the  individual  as  opposed  to  the  state. 

c.  Personal  loyalty^  as  contrasted  vrith  loyalty  to  the  state. 

d.  A  new  chance  for  democracy  —  in  the  popular  assemblies 

of  different  grades,  some  of  which,  in  England,  were  to 
develop  representative  features. 

It  is  not  correct  to  say  that  the  Teutons  gave  us  representative  govern- 
ment. What  they  did  was  to  give  another  chance  to  develop  it.  The  ear- 
lier peoples  had  lost  their  chances.  The  longer-continued  rural  organi- 
zation of  the  Teutons,  together  with  certain  future  features  of  English 
history,  were  to  secure  success. 

e.  A  system  of  self-developing  law.    The  codification  of  the 

E-oman  law  preserved  it,  but  also  fixed  and  crystal- 
lized it.  Teutonic  law  was  crude  and  unsystematic, 
but  it  contained  possibility  of  growth.  The  importance 
of  this  has  been  felt  mainly  in  the  English  "  Common 
Law,"  which  is  of  course  the  basis  of  our  American 
legal  system. 

615.  Influence  of  the  Mixture  upon  Later  European  Civilization. 

—  This  mingling  of  forces  has  been  felt  ever  since  in  European 
history.  As  has  been  before  noted  (§  §  79, 80),  Oriental  civiliza- 
tions quickly  became  uniform;  society  crystallized;  develop- 
ment ceased.  European  civilization  began  in  Greece  with 
diversity  and  freedom,  and  these  factors  were  aided  by  geo- 
graphical conditions  over  all  Western  Europe,  with  its  small 
territorial  divisions  and  indented  coast.  But  after  some  centu- 
ries, the  Eoman  Empire  had  begun  to  take  on  Oriental  uniform- 
ity :  society  there,  too,  had  crystallized  (§  550),  and  progress 
apparently  had  ceased.  The  mingling  of  the  new  elements 
contributed  by  the  Teutons  with  the  older  Roman  elements 
resulted  in  an  interaction  of  opposing  principles  which  has  pre- 
vented later  European  society  from  becoming  stagnant,  and  has 
significantly  aided  progress. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

POLITICAL  EUROPE,   600-800  A.D. 
I.   THE   FRANKS  TO   CHARLES  MARTEL. 

616.  Rivalry  of  Neustria  and  Austrasia.  —  Tn  the  seventh 
century  the  lines  of  partition  between  the  Frankish  sub-king- 
doms (§  590)  shifted  from  time  to  time,  but  on  the  whole  there 
stand  out  four  great  sections  of  the  empire:  Burgundy  and 
Aquitaine  in  the  south,  and  the  East  Franks  and  West  Franks 
(Austrasia  and  Neustria)  in  the  north.  The  first  two  were 
mainly  Koman  in  blood;  the  last  two  were  largely  German, 
especially  Austrasia.  This  province  comprised  the  old  home 
and  the  chief  vigor  of  the  Frankish  race,  little  affected  by 
Roman  influences;  but  Neustria,  containing  the  early  con- 
quests of  Clovis  and  his  imperial  capital,  held  a  certain  pres- 
tige over  all  the  rest. 

The  family  contests  among  the  rulers  of  the  sub-kingdoms 
finally  resolved  themselves  into  a  struggle  for  supremacy 
between  these  two  states,  Neustria  and  Austrasia ;  it  was  plain 
that  south  Gaul  must  fall  to  the  victor. 

617.  "Do-nothing  Kings"  and  Mayors  of  the  Palace. — From 
628  to  638  A.D.  the  whole  empire  was  reunited  under  the  vigor- 
ous Dagobert,  but  after  that  monarch's  death  the  Merovingian 
line  declined  rapidly.  The  kings  earned  the  name  of  "Do- 
nothings,"  and  real  power  w^ls  exercised  in  each  sub-kingdom 
by  a  mayor  of  the  palace.  Originally  this  ofiicer  was  a  chief 
domestic,  the  head  of  the  royal  household  (cf.  §  519) ;  but  one 
by  one  he  had  withdrawn  all  the  functions  of  government 
from  the  indolent  kings.  At  first  the  office  was  filled  by  the 
king's  appointment;    as  it  grew  more  important,  the  nobles 

497 


498  POLITICAL  EUROPE,  600-800  A.D.  [§  618 

sometimes  claimed  the  right  to  elect  the  holder ;  and  in  Aus- 
trasia  the  position  finally  became  hereditary.  Soon  after  Dago- 
bert's  time,  the  rule  of  the  mayors  had  become  so  undisguised 
that  contemporaries  began  to  date  events  by  the  mayor's  name 
rather  than  by  the  king's.  Once  a  year,  the  long-haired  king 
himself  was  carried  forth  in  stately  procession  on  his  ox-cart, 
to  be  shown  to  the  Assembly  of  the  Mayfield.  The  rest  of 
the  time  he  lived  retired  on  some  obscure  estate,  in  indolence 
and  swinish  pleasures  that  brought  him  to  an  early  grave.^ 

618.  Pippin  of  Heristal:  Testry. — The  fifty  years  after  Dago- 
bert  were  filled  with  anarchy  and  civil  war,  and  the  Frankish 
state  seemed  about  to  fall  to  pieces;  in  particular,  Bavaria  and 
Thuringia  (purely  German)  and  Aquitaine  (the  most  purely 
Roman  province,  §  590)  broke  away  into  states  practically 
independent  under  native  dukes.  But  finally,  at  the  battle 
of  Testry  (687  a.d.),  the  Austrasians  under  their  mayor.  Pippin 
of  Heristal,  established  their  supremacy  over  the  W-est  Franks. 
Austrasia  at  this  moment  had  no  separate  king,  and  Pippin 
might  now  have  set  np  an  independent  kingdom  there;  but 
instead  he  chose  wisely  to  rule  both  kingdoms  as  mayor  of 
Neustria,  appointing  a  trusted  friend  mayor  of  Austrasia.  In 
appearance,  Austrasia  remained  the  less  dignified  state,  but 
really  it  had  given  to  the  realm  of  the  Franks  a  new  line  of 
rulers  and  a  new  infusion  of  German  blood  and  ideas.  Testry 
stands  for  a  second  Teutonic  conquest  of  the  more  Roman 
provinces,  and  for  a  reunion  of  the  two  halves  of  the  empire. 
Some  of  the  great  border  dukedoms  long  remained  almost 
independent;  but  Pippin  is  rightly  regarded  as  the  second 
founder  of  the  Frankish  state. 

619.  Charles  Mattel,  Sole  Mayor. — Pippin's  son,  Charles,  went 
farther.  He  concentrated  in  his  single  person  tne  offices  of 
mayor  of  Austrasia,  of  Neustria,  and  of  Burgundy,  and  brought 
back  to  subjection  the  great  dukedoms  of  Bavaria  and  Thuringia; 

1  Read  Hodgkin's  Charles  the  Great,  13. 


§620]  THE   MOHAMMEDAN  PERIL.  499 

he  established  firm  order,  too,  among  the  unruly  chiefs  of  the 
German  frontier,  and  partially  reasserted  the  old  Frank ish 
authority  over  Aquitaine,  which  was  now  making  a  gallant  fight 
for  national  independence.  The  crushing  blows  Charles  dealt 
his  rivals  in  these  struggles  won  him  the  title  of  the  Hammer 
(Martel),  which  he  was  soon  to  justify  in  a  more  critical  con- 
flict that  saved  Europe  from  Mohammedanism  (§  625).  Except 
for  Pippin  and  Martel,  there  would  have  been  no  Christian 
power  able  to  withstand  the  Arab  onslaught.  The  victory  of 
Testry  and  the  pounding  of  the  Hammer  of  the  Franks  came 
none  too  soon. 

For  Further  Reading.  —  Hodgkin's  Charles  the  Great,  8-45 ;  Church's 
Beginning  of  the  Middle  Ages,  82-88  j  Sergeant's  Franks. 

II.     THE   MOHAMMEDAN  PERIL. 

620.  Arabia  before  Mohammed. — About  a  century  after  Clovis 
built  up  the  empire  of  the  Franks,  a  better  man,  out  of  less 
promising  materials,  began  to  create  a  mighty  political  and 
religious  force  in  Arabia  —  at  the  farthest  corner  of  the  Medi- 
terranean world,  and  in  a  region  until  then  beyond  the  pale 
of  history.  This  new  power  w^as  destined,  within  the  time 
spanned  by  one  human  life,  to  win  Persia  from  the  Zoroastrians, 
Asia  and  Africa  from  the  Greek  Empire,  and  to  contest  Western 
Europe  with  the  Franks.  Checked  in  thiis  attempt,  it  was  still 
to  maintain  itself  in  Spain  for  eight  hundred  years,  and  later 
to  win  Eastern  Europe,  where,  though  corrupt  and  decayed,  it 
still  maintains  a  foothold. 

The  best  of  the  Arabian  tribes  were  related  to  the  Jews  and 
the  old  Assyrians,  but  on  the  whole  the  peninsula  contained  a 
mongrel  population.  A  few  tribes  near  the  Bed  Sea  had  risen 
to  a  respectable  material  civilization,  but  the  greater  number 
were  poor  and  ignorant;  all  were  weak,  disunited,  and  idola- 
trous. The  inspiring  force  that  was  to  lift  them  to  a  higher 
life,  and  fuse  them  into  a  world-conquering  nation,  was  the 
fiery  enthusiasm  of  Mohammed. 


500  POLITICAL  EUROPE,  600-800  A.D.  [§  621 

621.  Mohammed,  to  the  Hegira.  —  This  remarkable  man  never 
learned  to  read,  but  his  speech  was  fluent  and  forceful,  and  his 
manner  pleasing  and  commanding.  His  youth  had  been  mod- 
est, serious,  and  truthful,  so  that  he  had  earned  the  surname  of 
The  Faithful.  At  twenty-five  he  became  wealthy  by  marriage 
with  his  employer,  the  good  widow  Kadijah,  and  until  forty  he 
continued  to  live  the  life  of  an  influential,  respected  merchant. 
He  had  always  been  subject,  however,  to  occasional  periods  of 
religious  ecstasy  (which  may  have  been  connected  with  a  ten- 
dency to  hysteria  or  epilepsy),  and  now,  upon  a  time  as  he 
watched  and  prayed  in  the  desert,  a  wondrous  vision  revealed 
to  him  (he  said)  a  higher  religion,  and  enjoined  upon  him 
the  mission  of  preaching  it  to  his  people.  At  first,  indeed, 
Mohammed  seems  to  have  feared  that  this  vision  was  a  subtle 
temptation  of  the  devil;  but  Kadijah's  confidence  convinced 
him  that  it  came  truly  from  heaven,  and  he  entered  upon  his 
arduous  task. 

The  better  features  of  the  new  religion  were  drawn  from 
Jewish  and  Christian  sources  (with  which  the  merchant  had 
become  somewhat  acquainted  in  his  travels) ;  and  indeed  Mo- 
hammed recognized  Abraham,  Moses,  and  Christ  as  true  proph- 
ets, but  claimed  that  he  was  to  supersede  them.  His  precepts 
were  embodied  in  the  sacred  book  of  the  Koran.  The  two  es- 
sential elements  of  his  religious  teaching  were  belief  in  one 
God  {Allah),  and  submission  to  His  will  (Islam)  as  revealed  by 
His  final  prophet. 

Mohammed's  closest  intimates  accepted  him  at  once,  but  be- 
yond them,  in  the  first  twelve  discouraging  years  of  preaching, 
he  made  only  a  few  groups  of  converts.  Especially  did  his 
townsfolk  of  Mecca,  the  chief  city  of  Arabia,  jeer  his  preten- 
sions. The  priests  of  the  old  religion  roused  the  people  against 
him,  and  finally  he  barely  escaped  with  life  from  his  home. 

622.  From  the  Hegira  to  the  death  of  Mohammed,  622-632 
A.D.  —  This  flight  of  the  prophet  from  Mecca  is  the  Hegira, 
the  point  from  which  the  Mohammedan  world  reckons  time, 


§622]  THE   MOHAMMEDAN  PERIL.  501 

as  Christendom  does  from  the  birth  of  Christ.     The  first  year 
of  the  Mohammedan  era  corresponds  to  our  year  622  a.d. 

From  this  time  dates  a  change  in  Mohammed's  policy.  Like 
his  enemies,  he  also  took  up  the  sword;  and  now  he  made 
converts  rapidly  and  soon  recaptured  Mecca,  which  became 
the  sacred  city  of  the  faith.  His  fierce  warriors  were  almost 
irresistible,  inspired,  as  they  were,  not  only  by  religious  devo- 
tion, but  also  by  a  high  fatalism  that  conquered  fear,  and  by  a 
faith  that  rejoiced  in  death  in  battle  as  the  surest  admission  to 
the  joys  of  Paradise. 

"The  sword,"  said  Mohammed,  **is  the  key  of  heaven.  A  drop  of 
blood  shed  in  the  cause  of  God  is  of  more  avail  than  two  months  of  fast- 
ing and  prayer ;  whoso  falls  in  battle,  all  his  sins  are  forgiven ;  at  the 
day  of  judgment  his  wounds  shall  be  resplendent  as  vermilion  and  odor- 
iferous as  musk.'* 

At  the  same  time,  they  were  comparatively  mild  in  victory. 
Pagans,  it  is  true,  had  to  choose  between  the  new  teaching  and 
death;  but  Jews  and  Christians  were  allowed  to  keep  their 
faith,  if  they  chose,  on  'payment  of  tribute.  Mohammed 
preached  now  a  political  system  as  well  as  a  religion.  He 
became  not  only  prophet,  but  king  —  supreme  in  all  matters 
civil,  military,  and  religious.  This  theocratic  and  despotic 
character  descended  to  the  Caliphs  who  followed  him  ^  and  has 
marked  the  chief  rulers  of  the  Mohammedan  world  ever  since. 
Mohammed  has  been  vehemently  accused  of  resorting  to 
fraud  and  deceit  to  advance  his  cause.  To  ascertain  the  exact 
truth  of  the  matter  is  impossible.  In  the  stress  of  conflict, 
and  under  the  temptation  of  power,  his  character  may  have 
suffered  some  decline;  but  on  the  whole,  he  seems  to  have 
been  earnest  and  sincere  to  the  end,  however  self-deluded. 
Certainly  his  rules  restrained  vice  and  set  up  higher  standards 
of  right  than  had  ever  been  presented  to  the  people  for  whom 
he  made  them ;  and  the  religious  enthusiasm  he  inspired 
created  a  mighty  nation  of  devoted  courage  and  strict  morals, 

1  Caliph  means  "successor  "  of  the  Prophet. 


502  POLITICAL  EUROPE,  600-800  A.D.  [§  623 

and,  finally,  of  noble  culture.  Just  before  his  death,  he  had 
sent  ambassadors  to  demand  the  submission  of  the  two  great 
powers  in  the  East,  —  the  Greek  Empire  and  Persia.  Accord- 
ing to  the  story,  the  Persian  ruler  answered  the  messenger, 
naturally  enough :  "  Who  are  you  to  attack  an  empire  ?  You, 
of  all  peoples  the  poorest,  most  disunited,  most  ignorant ! " 
"  What  you  say,"  replied  the  Arabian,  "  was  true.  But  now 
we  are  a  new  people.  God  has  raised  up  among  us  a  man.  His 
prophet,  and  his  religion  has  enlightened  our  minds,  extin- 
guished our  hatreds,  and  made  us  a  society  of  brothers.'' 

623.  The  Seventy  Years  of  Conquest.  —  Mohammed  lived  only 
ten  years  after  the  Hegira,  and  his  own  sway  had  nowhere 
reached  beyond  Arabia.  Eighty  years  after  his  death,  his 
followers  stood  victorious  upon  the  Oxus,  the  Indus,  the  Black 
Sea,  the  Atlantic.  Most  of  the  wide  realm  so  bounded  —  in- 
cluding the  great  historic  peoples  of  the  Iran  plateau  and  of 
the  Nile  and  Euphrates  valleys  —  still  belongs  to  their  faith. 
All  the  Asiatic  empire  of  Alexander  had  fallen  to  it ;  all  North 
Africa  beside ;  and  already,  drawing  together  the  sweeping 
horns  of  its  mighty  crescent-form,  this  new  power  was  trying 
to  enter  Europe  from  both  east  and  west  —  by  the  narrow 
straits  of  the  Hellespont  and  of  Gibraltar. 

624.  The  Attack  upon  Europe  in  the  East;  the  Repulse  at 
Constantinople.  —  The  preservation  of  Europe  from  the  first 
attack  lay  with  the  Greek  Empire.  After  Justinian  (§  582) 
that  state  had  fallen  again  to  decay,  and,  for  a  time,  had 
seemed  in  danger  of  annihilation  by  the  Slavs  from  Europe 
and  Persians  from  Asia.  Now  the  Arabs  had  conquered 
Persia,  taking  its  ancient  place  as  the  champion  of  the  Orient; 
they  had  overrun  Syria  and  Asia  Minor  also;  and  in  672  a.d.. 
they  besieged  Constantinople  itself.  Their  victory  at  this 
time  (before  Testry)  would  have  left  all  Europe  open  to  their 
triumphal  march ;  but  the  heroism  and  generalship  of  Constan- 
tine  IV.  saved  the  western  world.  Happily,  in  the  twenty 
years'  anarchy  that  followed  this  emperor's   death,  the  Sara- 


§625]  THE   MOHAMMEDAN  PERIL.  503 

cens  made  no  determined  effort ;  but  in  717  a.d.  they  returned 
to  the  attack.  A  new  and  vigorous  ruler  had  just  come  to 
the  throne  at  Constantinople  —  Leo  the  Isaurian,  who  was  to 
begin  another  glorious  line  of  Greek  emperors.  Leo  had  only- 
five  months  after  his  accession  in  which  to  restore  order  and  to 
prepare  for  the  terrific  onset  of  the  Mohammedans ;  but  once 
more  the  Asiatics  were  beaten  back  —  after  a  twelve  months' 
siege.  The  most  formidable  menace  to  Europe  wore  itself 
away  on  the  walls  of  the  city  of  Constantine. 

Arabian  chroniclers  themselves  say  that  only  thirty  thousand  survived 
of  a  host  of  one  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  well-appointed  warriors 
who  began  the  siege.  The  Greek  authorities  made  the  Saracen  numbers 
some  three  hundred  thousand,  and  "by  the  time  the  story  reached  West- 
ern Europe  these  numbers  had  grown  beyond  all  recognition." 

A  chief  weapon  of  the  defense  was  the  newly  invented  Greek  fire, 
which  was  afterward  to  be  used  with  terrible  effect  by  the  Mohammedans 
themselves.  Six  centuries  later,  Western  Europe  was  still  ignorant  of  its 
secret,  and  an  old  crusader  who  first  saw  it  in  a  night  battle  described  it 
as  follows  :  '*  Its  nature  was  in  this  wise,  that  it  rushed  forward  as  large 
round  as  a  cask  of  verjuice,  and  the  tail  of  the  fire  which  issued  from  it 
was  as  big  as  a  large-sized  spear.  It  made  such  a  noise  in  coming  that 
it  seemed  as  if  it  were  a  thunderbolt  from  heaven,  and  it  looked  like  a 
dragon  flying  through  the  air.  It  cast  such  a  brilliant  light  that  in  the 
camp  we  could  see  as  clearly  as  if  it  were  noonday." — Joinville, 
St.  Louis. 

625.  The  Attack  in  the  West :  Repulse  at  Tours.  —  In  711 
A.D.,  however,  the  Arabs  did  enter  Spain,  and  were  soon  mas- 
ters of  the  kingdom,  except  for  a  few  remote  mountain  fast- 
nesses where  Visigothic  chieftains  maintained  a  precarious 
independence.  Then,  crossing  the  Pyrenees,  the  Mohamme- 
dan flood  spread  over  Gaul,  even  to  the  Loire.  Now,  indeed,  it 
"  seemed  that  the  crescent  was  about  to  round  to  the  full." 
But  the  Duke  of  Aquitaine  (who  had  long  led  a  revolt  against 
Frankish  supremacy)  now  fled  to  Charles  Martel  for  aid,  and 
in  732  A.D.,  in  the  plains  near  Tours,  the  "Hammer  of  the 
Franks "  met  the  Arab  host  with  his  close  array  of  mailed 
Austrasian  infantry.     From  dawn  to  dark,  on  a  Saturday  in 


504  POLITICAL  EUROPE,  600-800  A.D.  [§  626 

October,  the  gallant  turbaned  horsemen  of  the  Saracens  dashed 
recklessly,  but  in  vain,  against  that  stern  wall  of  iron.  That 
night  the  survivors  stole  in  silent  flight  from  their  camp,  and, 
though  they  kept  some  hold  upon  a  fringe  of  Aquitaine  for 
a  while,  Gaul  was  saved. 

The  battle  of  Tours,  just  one  hundred  years  after  Moham- 
med's death,  is  the  high-water  mark  of  the  Saracen  invasion. 
No  doubt  the  attempt  would  have  been  renewed  more  vigor- 
ously, but  only  a  few  years  afterward  the  Mohammedan  world, 
like  Christendom,  split  into  rival  empires.  The  Caliph  of  the 
East  built,  for  his  capital,  Bagdad  on  the  Tigris,  for  centuries 
the  richest  and  greatest  city  in  the  world;  the  Caliphate  of 
the  West  established  its  capital  at  Cordova  in  Spain.  The 
two  states  were  bitter  rivals,  and,  with  this  disunion,  the  criti- 
cal danger  to  Western  civilization  had  passed.  The  repulses 
at  Constantinople  and  at  Tours  rank  with  Marathon,  Salamis, 
Metaurus,  and  Chalons,  in  the  long  struggle  between  Asia 
and  Europe. 

626.  Later  Mohammedanism.  —  The  Arabs  quickly  adopted 
the  Greek  culture,  and,  to  some  degree,  extended  it,  in  their 
centuries  of  supremacy.  In  Persia  and  Spain  they  developed 
a  noble  literature ;  they  sustained  the  most  advanced  schools 
and  universities  of  the  Middle  Ages ;  from  India  they  brought 
the  "Arabic"  notation;  algebra  and  alchemy  (chemistry)  are 
Arabic  in  origin  as  in  name ;  the  heavens  retain  evidence  of 
their  studies  in  a  thick  sprinkling  of  Arabic  names  (like  Aldeh- 
eran),  while  numerous  astronomical  terms  (azimuth,  zenith, 
nadir,  etc.)  testify  to  the  same  zeal.  On  the  whole,  however, 
the  Arabs  showed  little  real  creative  power;  and  at  a  later 
time  political  leadership  fell  to  races  like  the  Turks,^  even  less 

1  The  term  Saracen,  sometimes  applied  to  any  Mohammedan  power,  he- 
longs  strictly  to  the  Arahs ;  in  North  Africa  the  Arabs  mingled  with  the 
Berbers  of  Mauritania,  and  the  race  became  known  as  Moors  (afterward 
dominant  in  Spain)  ;  the  Turks,  who  now  for  almost  a  thousand  years  have 
been  the  leading  Mohammedan  people,  came  in  later  from  Northern  Asia  and 
are  allied  to  the  Tartars. 


§627]  THE   PAPACY.  505 

capable  of  culture.  Moreover,  Mohammedanisin  did  directly 
sanction  polygamy  and  slavery  (evils  which  Mohammed  found 
existing  about  him,  and  which  he  accepted);  it  left  no  room 
for  the  rise  of  woman ;  and,  worst  of  all,  since  the  Prophet's 
teachings  were  final,  it  crystallized  into  a  changeless  system, 
opposed  to  all  improvement  and  doomed  therefore  to  decay. 
Thus,  even  at  its  best,  Mohammedan  civilization  was  marked 
by  an  Oriental  character :  it  was  despotic,  uniform,  stagnant,  — 
sure  to  be  outrun  finally  by  the  western  European  world,  ruder 
at  first,  but  more  progressive. 

For  Further  Reading. — Curteis'  Boman  Empire,  210-227;  Stills, 
98-126 ;  Freeman's  Saracens^  Bury,  II.  bk.  v.  ch.  vi.  ;  Oman's  Byzan- 
tine Empire;  Carlyle's  essay  on  Mohammed  {Heroes and  Hero-worship). 
Advanced  students  may  consult  Draper's  Intellectual  Development  oj 
Europe,  and  Bury's  Gibbon,  ch.  1. 

Muir's  The  Coran  gives  translations  of  important  passages;  some 
translations  are  given  m  Guernsey  Jones'  Source  Extracts, 


ni.    THE  PAPACY. 
A.    KisE  TO  Ecclesiastical  Headship. 

627.   Claim:  Doctrine  of  the  "Petrine  Supremacy."  —  In  the 

fourth  and  fifth  centuries  the  Christian  Church  had  divided  its 
allegiance  between  the  great  patriarchs  of  Jerusalem,  Antioch, 
Alexandria,  Constantinople,  and  Rome  (§  533).  In  spite  of  the 
growing  tendency  to  monarchic  organization,  no  one  of  these 
bishops  had  been  able  to  establish  authority  over  all  Christen- 
dom ;  but  claim  to  such  supremacy  had  been  put  forward  by 
one  of  them. 

The  claim  took  this  form :  Christ  had  especially  intrusted 
the  government  of  his  Church  to  Peter;  Peter  (according  to 
tradition)  ^  had  founded  the  first  church  at  Rome ;  hence  the 
bishops  of  Rome,  as  the  successors  of  Peter,  held  spiritual  sway 
over  Christendom. 

^  See  a  good  argument  in  Ramsey's  Church  in  the  Empire, 


506  POLITICAL  EUROPE,  600-800  A.D.  [§  628 

628.  Advantages  and  Events  that  helped  to  make  this  Claim 
Good.  —  To  support  her  claim  over  all  the  West  against  her 
» eastern  rivals,  Eome  possessed  many  advantages  in  past  his- 
tory, and  in  the  events  of  the  first  Christian  centuries. 

a.  From  early  times  the  bishops  of  Eome  were  readily 
allowed  a  certain  precedence  in  dignity,  even  by  the  other 
patriarchs,  because  men  so  inevitably  thought  of  Rome  as  the 
world-capital.^ 

h.  The  Latin  half  of  the  empire,  which  would  most  naturally 
turn  to  Eome  for  leadership,  contained  no  other  apostolic 
church,  nor  even  any  other  great  city,  to  become  a  possible 
rival.  The  other  patriarchs  were  all  in  the  Greek  half  of  the 
empire  —  east  of  the  Adriatic  (§§  391,  533). 

c.  The  absence  of  doctrinal  disputes  in  the  West,  as  com- 
pared with  the  incessant  hair-splitting  controversies  in  the 
more  speculative  East  (§  534),  made  it  easier  for  spiritual 
leadership  to  maintain  itself. 

d.  A  long  line  of  able  popes,^  by  their  moderation  and  states- 
manship, helped  to  confirm  the  place  of  Eome  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  all  the  West.  Not  unfrequently,  indeed,  they 
were  accepted  as  arbitrators  in  the  disputes  between  eastern 
patriarchs. 

e.  The  barbarian  invasions  strengthened  the  position  of  the 
pope  in  at  least  two  ways :  the  decline  of  the  imperial  power 
in  the  West  diminished  the  danger  of  interference  from  Con- 
stantinople; and  the  churches  in  Spain  and  Gaul,  in  their 
dread  of  the  Arian  conquerors,  turned  to  Eome  for  closer 
guidance,  abandoning  any  tendency  to  national  independence 
in  ecclesiastical  matters. 

/.  Eome's  own  missionary  labors  did  much  to  extend  her 
power;  in  particular,  it  was  through  her  that  the  Arian 
conquerors  in  the  West  were  finally  brought  to  the  orthodox 

1  The  philosopher  Hobbes  called  the  Papacy  only  "  the  ghost  of  the  Romau 
Empire,  crowned  and  seated  on  the  grave  thereof." 

2  The  name  Pope  (papa)  was  originally  only  a  term  of  affectionate  respect, 
applied  to  any  bishop.    Special  reports :  Leo  and  Gregory  the  Great. 


§629]  THE  PAPACY.  507 

doctrine,  and  that  the  pagans  in  Teutonic  England  and  in  Ger- 
many were  converted  to  Christianity.  To  these  last,  in  par- 
ticular, Rome  was  a  mother  church,  to  be  obeyed  implicitly 
in  matters  of  faith. ^ 

629.   Rome  freed  from  Eastern  Rivals;  the  "Great  Schism." — 

The  peculiar  claims  of  Rome,  however,  carried  no  weight  in  the 
East;  and  until  650  a.d.,  even  to  men  of  the  West,  her  bishop 
appeared  only  one  (though  the  most  loved  and  respected  one) 
among  five  great  patriarchs.  But  the  next  century  eliminated 
the  other  four,  so  far  as  western  Christendom  was  concerned. 
Alexandria,  Jerusalem,  and  Antioch  fell  to  the  Saracens  in 
quick  succession ;  and  soon  afterward  remaining  Christendom 
split  into  rival  Latin  and  Greek  churches,  grouped  respectively 
around  Rome  and  Constantinople. 

The  schism,  like  the  political  division  of  the  old  Roman 
Empire  into  East  and  West,  seems  to  have  been  based  upon 
fundamental  differences  in  character ;  certainly  it  followed  the 
same  persistent  lines  of  partition  between  the  Latin  and  Greek 
cultures  (§  391).^  The  split  had  begun  to  show  very  early;  it 
was  assisted  by  the  political  differences  of  East  and  West,  and 
by  the  Teutonic  jealousy  of  the  Greek  emperor ;  but  the  final 
occasion  for  actual  separation  was  a  religious  dispute  over  the 
use  of  images  in  worship. 

This  is  known  as  the  "iconoclast"  (image-breaking)  ques- 
tion. A  small  but  influential  minority  in  the  Greek  Empire 
had  desired  to  restrict  or  abolish  the  use  of  images,  which, 
they  felt,  the  more  ignorant  were  apt  to  degrade  from 
symbols  into  idols.  The  great  reforming  emperor.  Lea  the 
Isaurian  (717-741  a.d.),  put  himself  at  the  head  of  the  move- 
ment, with  all  his  despotic  authority,  and  finally  ordered  all 
images  removed  from  the  churches.^      The  West  in  general 

1  Special  report :  the  life  and  labors  of  Boniface,  "Apostle  to  the  Germans." 

2  Was  the  division  of  the  Arabian  power  into  rival  caliphates  (§  625)  affected 
perhaps  by  the  like  differences  in  civilization  ? 

3  In  the  East,  Leo  and  his  successors  were  temporarily  successful.  The 
monks  and  populace  resisted  them,  however,  and  before  the  year  800  a.d.  the 


508  POLITICAL  EUROPE,  600-800  A.D.  [§630 

believed  in  their  use,  and  in  Italy  the  Pope  forbade  obedience 
to  the  imperial  decree.  The  result  was  the  separation  of 
Christendom  into  two  halves,  never  since  united. 

The  Great  Schism  left  the  supremacy  of  Rome  unquestioned 
in  the  Latin  Church,  while  other  conditions,  to  be  noted  in 
the  next  section,  erected  its  leadership  into  a  real  monarchy, 
spiritual  and  temporal,  such  as  was  never  attained  in  the 
Greek  Church,  where  the  patriarchs  of  Constantinople  were 
overshadowed  by  the  imperial  will. 

B.    The  Pope  becomes  a  Temporal  Sovereign. 

630.  The  Pope  as  a  Civil  Officer  of  the  Greek  Emperor. — 
While  the  Roman  bishops  were  winning  this  spiritual  rule 
over  all  the  West,  they  were  also  becoming  temporal  princes 
(or  kings)  over  a  small  state  in  Italy.  This  process  begins 
with  the  Lombard  invasion.  In  the  break-up  of  Italy  (§  585), 
the  imperial  governor  (exarch)  at  Ravenna  was  cut  off  from 
Rome  and  the  strip  of  territory  about  it  still  belonging  to  the 
Empire.  Now,  from  the  time  of  Constantine,  all  bishops  had 
held  considerable  civil  authority ;  and  this  new  condition  left 
the  bishop  of  Rome  the  chief  imperial  lieutenant  in  his  isolated 
district.  At  the  same  time,  in  the  position  that  he  claimed  as 
spiritual  head  of  Christendom,  in  some  matters  he  called  for 
submission  from  the  emperor  himself.  Thus  his  double  char- 
acter of  the  emperor's  servant  and  the  emperor's  superior  could 
be  easily  confused ;  while  the  difficulty  of  effective  communica- 
tion left  him  in  any  case  very  nearly  an  independent  sovereign. 

631.  This  Virtual  Independence  avowed  by  Open  Rebellion.  — 
But  the  emperor  did  not  permit  this  growing  independence 
without  a  struggle :  one  pope  was  dragged  from  the  altar  to  a 
dungeon ;  another  died  a  lonely  exile  in  the  Crimea ;  and  only 

image-worshipers  regained  the  throne  in  the  person  of  the  Empress  Irene. 
Meantime,  however,  the  question  had  divided  Christendom.  The  churches  of 
Greece  and  Russia  and  the  other  Slav  states  of  Southeastern  Europe  still 
belong  to  the  Greek  communion. 


§632]  THE  PAPACY.  509 

a  threatened  revolt  in  Italy  saved  another  from  a  like  fate  in 
701  A.D.  This  last  fact  is  notable.  More  and  more  the  Roman 
population  of  Italy  rallied  round  the  great  bishop  as  cham- 
pion against  the  disliked  Greek  Power.  When  the  Emperor 
Leo  III.  (§  624)  tried  to  reform  and  extend  imperial  taxation 
in  Italy,  Pope  Gregory  sanctioned  resistance.  The  imperial 
decree  regarding  images,  we  have  noted,  met  with  like  recep- 
tion. Projects  were  discussed  for  setting  up  a  new  emperor 
in  Italy,  or  for  a  confederation  of  all  Italy  under  the  Pope. 
As  the  image-worship  dispute  grew  violent,  church  councils, 
summoned  by  Pope  Gregory  II.  (730  a.d.)  and  Gregory  III. 
(731  A.D.),  excommunicated  Leo.  The  emperor  sent  a  fleet 
and  army  to  seize  Gregory  and  subdue  Italy,  but  a  storm 
wrecked  the  expedition  and  the  Pope's  rebellion  succeeded. 
Subsequent  Roman  bishops  assumed  office  without  imperial 
sanction,^  and  fifty  years  later  Pope  Hadrian  made  the  political 
separation  more  apparent  by  ceasing  to  date  events  by  the 
reigns  of  the  emperors.^ 

632.  Recognition  and  Protection  of  the  New  Sovereignty  by  the 
Franks.  —  The  third  step  was  to  secure  recognition  for  the  new 
sovereignty.  The  Lombard  kings  in  Italy,  at  war  with  the 
emperor,  had  seized  the  Exarchate  of  Ravenna  in  the  north, 
and  were  bent  upon  seizing  Rome  also,  on  the  ground  that  it 
likewise  belonged  to  their  enemy  the  emperor.  A  Lombard 
master  close  at  hand  would  have  been  more  dangerous  to  the 
papal  claims  than  a  distant  Greek  master;  and  the  popes 
appealed  to  the  Franks  for  aid.  It  happened  that  the  great 
Prankish  Mayors  had  need  of  papal  sanction  for  their  plans 
just  then,  and  so  the  bargain  was  struck.  The  story  demands 
that  we  return  to  Prankish  history. 

1  Until  this  rebellion,  the  popes,  though  elected  by  the  clergy  and  people  of 
Kome,  had  waited  like  other  bishops  for  confirmation  by  the  emperor  before 
entering  on  their  office. 

2  Instead,  he  called  a  certain  day  "  December  1,  of  the  year  781  under  the 
reign  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  our  God  and  Redeemer,"  and  so  began  our 
method  of  counting  time.    He  should  have  made  the  year  785  (§  458) . 


510  POLITICAL  EUROPE,  600-800  A.D.  [§  633 

For  Further  Reading. — Church,  106-110;  Carr's  Church  and  Em- 
pire^ ch.  xxiv. ;  Adams'  Civilization,  ch.  vi. ;  Bury,  II. ;  Wells'  Age  of 
Charlemagne  (Epochs  of  Church  History) ;  Emerton ;  Curteis ;  and  the 
Church  Histories,  Catholic  and  Protestant,  named  on  page  445. 

IV.    THE  FRANKS  AND  THE  PAPACY. 
(The  Franks  from  Charles  the  Hammer  to  Charles  the  Great.) 

633.  The  Carolingian  Dynasty  secures  the  Throne,  with  Papal 
Sanction.  —  Shortly  after  the  victory  at  Tours,  the  "  Do-nothr 
ing"  king  died.  Charles  Martel  did  not  venture,  or  did  not 
care,  to  take  himself  the  title  of  king,  but  neither  did  he 
place  any  Merovingian  upon  the  throne.  Before  his  death  he 
secured  the  consent  of  the  nobles  to  the  division  of  his  office 
between  his  sons  Karlmann  and  Pippin.  These  young 
mayors,  less  secure  at  first  than  their  victorious  father,  thought 
it  best  to  crown  a  Merovingian  prince,  in  whose  name  they 
might  govern,  like  their  predecessors.  Their  first  work  was  to 
continue  the  task  of  their  father  and  grandfather  in  restoring 
authority  over  Aquitaine  and  Bavaria.  Then  Karlmann  entered 
a  monastery,  —  as  various  other  princes,  English  and  Lombard, 
did  in  this  age,  —  and  Pippin  began  to  think  of  taking  to  him- 
self the  name  and  dignity,  as  well  as  the  labors,  of  royalty. 
He  felt,  however,  the  need  of  powerful  sanction  in  so  establish- 
ing a  new  royal  line ;  and  in  750  a.d.  he  sent  an  embassy  to 
the  Pope  to  ask  "whether  this  was  a  good  state  of  things  in 
regard  to  the  kings  of  the  Franks."  The  Pope,  who  needed 
Pippin's  aid  against  Lombard  encroachment,  replied,  "  It  seems 
better  that  he  who  has  the  power  should  be  king  rather  than 
he  who  is  falsely  called  so."  Thereupon  the  last  Merovingian 
was  sent  to  a  monastery  and  Pippin  assumed  the  crown. 

634.  Pippin  saves  and  enlarges  the  Temporal  Power  of  the 
Pope.  —  Just  before  the  death  of  Charles  Martel,  the  Pope, 
besieged  in  Kome  by  the  Lombard  king,  had  sent  frequent 
requests  to  the  Prankish  ruler  for  succor.  From  the  days  of 
Clovis  the  Franks  had  maintained  friendly  relations  with  the 


'   ^'r.  • 


§635]  THE  FRANKS  AND   THE  PAPACY.  511 

Roman  bishops,  but  Martel  would  not  heed  this  summons. 
The  Lombards  were  his  allies  against  the  Arabs,  and  his 
hands  were  full  at  home./  Pippin,  however,  now  owed  more 
to  the  Papacy ;  and  wheir  the  Lombards  attacked  Rome  again 
(soon  after  Pippin's  coronation),  Pope  Stephen  set  out  in 
person  to  beg  aid  at  the  Prankish  court.  During  this  visit  he 
himself  reconsecrated  Pippin  king  of  the  Franks.  In  return. 
Pippin  made  two  great  expeditions  into  Italy,  winning  easy 
victories  over  the  Lombards.  The  second  time  (756  a.d.),  he 
reduced  Lombardy  to  a  vassal  kingdom,  and  gave  to  the  Pope 
the  territory  that  the  Lombards  had  recently  seized  from  the 
Exarchate  of  Ravenna. 

635.  Different  Views  as  to  the  Nature  of  the  Authority  Con- 
ferred.—  This  is  the  famous  ^^  Donation  of  Pippin."  Papal 
writers  hold  that  the  Pope  was  intended  to  be  wholly  sov- 
ereign in  this  territory.  Protestant  scholars  generally  main- 
tain, on  the  other  hand,  that  Pippin  had  stepped  into  the 
place  of  the  Greek  emperor,  and  had  simply  intrusted  to  his 
lieutenant,  the  Pope,  somewhat  larger  domains  than  formerly. 
This  view  was  held  also  long  before  the  Reformation  by  the 
successors  of  Pippin  as  rulers  of  Germany  and  Italy.  Possi- 
bly, at  the  moment,  neither  party  had  any  consistent  theory  as 
to  the  exact  nature  of  the  act.  In  practice,  the  Prankish  kings 
and  the  popes  long  remained  close  friends,  and  it  was  not 
until  much  later  (when  disputes  arose),  that  a  theory  of  the 
situation  was  needed.  When  that  time  did  come,  however,  the 
absence  of  clear  definition  of  powers  in  this  grant  was  to  en- 
tangle well-meaning  men  on  opposite  sides  in  hopeless  quarrels 
for  centuries.  The  papal  view  at  length  prevailed.  From 
this  Donation  there  arose  the  kingdom  of  the  Papal  States 
—  a  strip  of  territory  reaching  across  the  peninsula  from  Rome 
to  Ravenna.^ 

i 

1  This  papal  kingdom  lasted  until  1870,  when  its  last  fragment  was  united 
to  the  new-boru  kingdom  of  Italy.  Many  Catholics  hope  still  for  its  restora- 
tion. They  believe  that  the  pope  cannot  be  free  to  direct  kingdoms  and 
rulers  in  moral  questions  as  they  think  he  should,  unless  he  is  independent 


612  POLITICAL  EUROPE,  600-800  A.D.  [§  636 

In  the  attempts  to  sustain  the  papal  claims  there  grew  up  a 
story  of  a  supposed  "  Donation  of  Constantine  the  Great "  in 
the  fourth  century.  According  to  this  imaginary  Donation,  the 
emperor  conferred  upon  the  popes  wider  domains  and  more  ex- 
tensive privileges.  The  legend  was  supported  in  the  ninth 
century  by  a  curious  pious  forgery,  put  forth  under  the  name 
of  the  great  Bishop  Isidore  of  Spain.  These  forged  Decretals 
of  Isidore  were  accepted  as  authentic  for  many  centuries.^ 

It  is  desirable  to  try  to  understand  that  such  "  forgeries " 
were  not  reprehensible  in  the  same  degree  as  they  would  be 
now,  with  our  clearer  view  of  the  value  of  historical  truth. 
They  are  very  common  in  uncritical  ages,  and  usually  they 
portray  what  their  authors  believed  to  be  true.  These  writers 
made  use  of  facts  somewhat  in  the  same  way  that  a  historical 
novelist  does  now.  The  development  of  history  has  now 
made  such  looseness  of  thinking  and  of  conduct  impossible. 


For  Further  Reading.  — Emerton,  151-177  ;  Hodgkin's  Charles^ 
44-82  ;  Bryce's  Holy  Boman  Empire^  34-41  ;  Sergeant's  Franks.  Hen- 
derson's Documents  contains  the  "  Donation  of  Constantine." 

politically.  This  he  can  be  only  if  he  is  himself  a  sovereign  prince.  No 
doubt  some  feeling  of  this  kind  began  very  early  to  inspire  the  popes  in  their 
march  toward  kingship. 

1  Special  topic.  See  especially  Milman,  III.  191,  note ;  Bury's  Gibbon ;  Cutts' 
Constantine :  and  references  above. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  EMPIRE  OF  CHARLEMAGNE. 

(Revival  of  the  Western  Empibb.) 

I.   EXPANSION  OF  THE  AREA  OF  CIVILIZATION 

636.  Importance  and  Character  of  the  Wars  of  Charles  the  Great. 
—  In  768  A.D.  Pippin,  king  of  the  Franks,  was  succeeded  by 
his  son  Charles.  This  prince  was  to  be  known  in  history  as 
Charles  the  Great  (Karl  Magnus,^  Charlemagne).  At  his 
accession  the  Prankish  state  comprised  the  same  area  as  in 
the  time  of  Dagobert ;  but  meantime  it  had  absorbed  more  of 
the  old  Roman  cultui-e,  and  it  promised  now  to  make  progress 
possible  once  more  in  Western  Europe.  It  was  in  peril,  how- 
ever, from  Mohammedanism  on  one  side,  and,  yet  more,  from 
barbarism  on  the  other ;  but  under  the  new  and  vigorous  Caro- 
lingians  the  Franks  took  the  aggressive  and  rolled  back  the  tide 
of  invasion.  Charles'  long  reign  (768-814)  was  filled  with  in- 
cessant border  war,  oftentimes  two  or  more  great  campaigns  in 
a  season.  He  stands  forth,  therefore,  as  a  warlike  figure,  and 
like  Caesar  and  Alexander,  he  did,  in  vital  respects,  extend  by 
arms  the*  area  of  civilized  life.     Charles,  however,  though  he 

1  This  French  form,  Charlemagne,  has  acquired  so  wide  use  that  it  is  not 
well  to  cast  it  aside;  hut  the  student  must  not  think  of  Karl  the  Great  as  a 
Frenchman,  or  even  as  "king  of  France."  He  was  king  of  the  Franks;  he 
himself  was  a  pure-hlooded  German  (Austrasian  Frank)  ;  he  had  the  yellow 
hair  and  fair  skin  of  the  northern  race ;  his  speech  was  German  ;  his  favorite 
capital  was  the  German  Aachen  (disguised  later  under  its  French  name  Aix)  ; 
and  in  history  he  was  really  the  predecessor,  not  so  much  of  the  later  French 
kings,  as  of  the  German  kings  and  emperors.  The  form  Karl  Magnus,  some- 
times severely  criticised,  has  the  sanction  of  contemporary  use,  and  is  sug- 
gestive of  the  mingling  of  Roman  and  Teutonic  elements  in  that  age. 

613 


514  THE   EMPIRE   OF   CHARLEMAGNE.  [§637 

planned  campaigns,  rarely  took  charge  of  their  conduct,  and 
his  warfare  has  little  that  is  striking  or  romantiq.  It  consisted 
generally  in  sending  overwhelming  forces  into  the  enemy's 
country  to  besiege  its  strongholds  and  waste  its  fields.  Charles 
was  neither  fighter  nor  general,  but  rather  statesman  and  ruler. 
He  warred  not  for  glory  or  gain,  but  to  crush  threatening 
perils  before  they  should  become  too  strong. 

637.   The  Winning  of  the  Saxon  Lands,  to  the  Elbe,  772-804. 

—  The  chief  struggle  was  with  the  heathen  Saxons,  who  were 
threatening  to  treat  the  Frankish  state  as  small  bands  of  them 
had  already  treated  Britain  some  three  centuries  before.  That 
fierce  people  still  held  the  wilderness  between  the  Rhine  and 
the  lower  Elbe,  and  they  maintained  there  a  thirty-two-year 
struggle  against  all  the  power  of  Charles  —  repeatedly  van- 
quished and  baptized,^  and  as  often  massacring  Frankish 
garrisons  and  returning  to  heathen  independence.  Charles' 
methods  grew  more  and  more  stern  and  cruel.  The  greatest 
blot  on  his  fame  is  the  "massacre  at  Verden"of  forty-five 
hundred  leaders  of  "rebellion"  who  had  been  surrendered 
at  his  demand.  At  last  even  the  heroic  Widukwd,  the  soul  of 
the  resistance,  despaired,  and  became  a  faithful  vassal ;  but  the 
embers  of  revolt  still  broke  again  and  again  into  flame,  until 
Charles  finally  transported  whole  Saxon  tribes  into  Gaul,  giving 
their  homes  to  Frankish  pioneers. 

Whatever  we  think  of  the  methods  or  excuses,  these  wars 
were  to  prove  the  most  fruitful  of  the  century.  The  long 
pounding  of  thirty  years  laid  the  foundation  for  modern  Ger- 
many. Widukind  happily  failed  where  Herman  had  succeeded, 
and  Charles  completed  the  work  that  Caesar  and  Augustus 
began  eight  centuries  before  (§§  437,  472).  Now  that  the 
Roman  world  had  been  Germanized,  it  was  time  for  Germany 
to  be  Romanized.  Civilization  and  Christianity  were  extended 
from  the  Rhine  to  the  Elbe.     The  district  was  planted  with 


1  Quite  in  Mohammedan  fashion,  Charles  offered  the  tribes  that  submitted 
a  choice  between  Christian  baptism  and  the  sword. 


§639]     EXPANSION  OF   THE   AREA   OF   CIVILIZATION.        515 

churches,  towns,  monasteries  ;  and  from  a  barbarian  menace, 
it  became  a  chief  agent  in  winning  more  lands  from  savagery. 
These  Saxon  campaigns  began  the  armed  colonization  of  the 
heathen  East  by  the  civilized  Germans  that  was  to  become 
one  of  the  great  marks  of  the  later  Middle  Ages. 

638.  Spain,  Italy,  Bavaria. — Other  foes  engaged  the  attention 
the  great  king  would  have  preferred  to  give  to  reconstruction. 
The  Saracens  were  easily  thrust  back  to  the  Ebro,  so  that  a 
strip  of  north  Spain  became  a  Frankish  mark.^  The  last 
vassal  Lombard  king,  Desiderius,  quarreled  with  the  Pope; 
and,  after  fruitless  negotiation,  Charles  marched  into  Italy, 
confirmed  Pippin's  grant  to  the  Pope,  sent  Desiderius  to  a 
monastery,  and  crowned  himself  king  of  the  Lombards,  at 
Pavia,  with  the  ancient 
iron  crown  of  Lombardy. 
A  revolt  in  Bavaria  led  to 
the  extinction  of  its  line  '■  '  ""  ^''  j 
of  native  dukes,  and  Ba-     ^^^^^^^"                    "^i^— -— — j 

639.  Result :  the  Union     ^  ^^^^^^^^^^^H 
of  the  German  Peoples. —     ^^  ^^   ^^ 
Thus,    by    expansion    and      Throne  of  Charlemagne,  in  the  cathe- 

•^  -^  dral  of  his  capital  city  Aachen  (Aix). 

consolidation,      Visigoth, 

Lombard,  Burgund,  Frank,  Bavarian,  Allemand,  Saxon,  —  all 
the  surviving  Germanic  peoples,  except  those  in  the  Scandina- 
vian peninsula  and  in  Britain, — were  united  into  a  Christian 
Romano-Teutonic  state.^    This  seems  to  have  been  the  aim  of 

1  The  defeat  of  Charlemagne's  rear  guard,  on  the  return,  by  the  wild  tribes- 
men of  the  Pyrenees  in  the  pass  of  Roncesvalles,  gave  rise  to  the  legend  of  the 
death  of  the  hero  Roland  in  battle  with  Saracens  there.  The  details  are  fable, 
but  the  Song  of  Roland  was  the  most  famous  poem  of  the  early  Middle  Ages. 

2  The  population  was  largely  Roman,  of  course,  hut  politically  the  different 
parts  of  the  state  were  essentially  Teutonic.  In  all  its  divisions,  in  Italy  and 
south  Gaul,  as  in  Saxon-land,  the  rule  for  the  most  part  was  in  Teutonic  hands. 


616  EMPIRE   OF   CHARLEMAGNE.  [§640 

Charlemagne.  More  than  this  he  did  not  wish.  He  might 
easily  have  seized  more  of  Spain  or  the  provinces  of  the  Greek 
Empire  in  south  Italy  (and  the  Empire  had  given  him  no  little 
provocation),  but  with  rare  moderation  he  even  returned  freely 
some  Adriatic  provinces  that  had  voluntarily  submitted  to  him. 
For  mere  conquest,  such  realms  would  have  been  vastly  more 
attractive  than  the  bleak  Saxon-land,  but  it  seems  plain  that 
Charles  did  not  choose  to  incorporate  incongruous  elements 
needlessly  into  his  German  state.  It  is  notable  also  that  the 
small  Teutonic  states  outside  his  realms,  in  Denmark  and  in 
England,  recognized  some  vague  overlordship  in  the  ruler  of 
the  Teutonic  continent. 

,  640.  Defensive  Wars  against  the  Eastern  Slavs ;  Dependent 
States.  —  So,  too,  his  later  wars  against  the  heathen  tribes  of 
the  East  were  essentially  defensive.  Beyond  the  German  ter- 
ritory there  stretched  away  indefinitely  savage  Slavs  and  Avars, 
who  from  time  to  time  hurled  themselves  against  the  barriers 
of  civilization,  as  in  old  Koman  days.  But  the  new  vigorous 
Teutonic  race  who  now  championed  the  cause  of  civilization 
attacked  barbarism  in  its  own  strongholds.  Gradually  the 
first  line  of  these  peoples  beyond  the  Elbe  and  Danube  (includ- 
ing modern  Bohemia  and  Moravia)  were  reduced  to  tributary 
kingdoms  —  to  serve  as  buffers  against  their  untamed  brethren 
farther  east ;  but  Charles  made  no  attempt  really  to  incorporate 
these  conquests  into  his  Frankish  state,  or  to  force  Christianity 
upon  them. 

II.   THE  REVIVAL  OF  THE   ROMAN  EMPIRE   IN  THE  WEST. 

641.  Reasons  and  Pretexts.  —  The  state  ruled  by  Clovis  and 
Dagobert  had  been  not  so  much  a  kingdom  as  an  empire,  in 
extent  and  character,  comprising,  as  it  did,  many  sub-states  and 
diverse  peoples.^     Charlemagne  had  given  new  emphasis  to 

1  This  is  the  proper  use  of  the  term  empire  as  distinguished  from  kingdom, 
and  this  meaning  it  always  had  until  Napoleon  III.  obscured  it  in  the  popular 


§643]     REVIVAL   OF   ROMAN   EMPIRE   IN  THE   WEST.        517 

this  character,  and  now  he  strengthened  the  structure  by  reviv- 
ing for  it  the  dignity  and  the  magic  name  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire. He  knew  that  the  mere  "  king  of  the  Franks "  could 
never  sway  the  minds  of  Visigoth,  Lombard,  Bavarian,  Saxon, 
and  especially  of  the  Roman  populations  they  dwelt  among,  as 
could  the  ^'Emperor  of  the  Romans''  ruling  from  the  old 
world-capital. 

But  there  was  already  a  "  Roman  Emperor "  at  Constanti- 
nople, whose  authority  in  legal  theory  still  extended  over  all 
Christendom  (§§  574,  599,  and  elsewhere).  Just  at  this  time, 
however,  Irene,  the  empress  mother,  put  out  the  eyes  of  her 
son,  Constantine  VI.,  and  seized  the  imperial  power.  To  most 
minds.  East  and  West,  the  world-throne  was  vacant;  and 
Charles  decided  to  restore  it  to  its  ancient  capital  in  the  West. 

642.  Election  and  Coronation.  —  On  Christmas  day,  800  a.d., 
Charles  was  at  Rome,  whither  he  had  been  called  once  more  to 
protect  the  Pope  from  turbulent  Italian  enemies.  During  the 
Christmas  service,  while  the  king  knelt  in  prayer,  Pope  Leo 
III.  placed  upon  his  head  a  gold  crown  and  saluted  him  as 
Charles  Augustus,  Emperor  of  the  Romans.  The  act  was  rati- 
fied by  the  enthusiastic  acclaim  of  the  multitude;  and  once 
more  Rome  had  chosen  an  emperor. 

643.  Theory  of  the  Empire.^  —  This  act  of  Leo  and  Charles 
was  not  a  partition  of  imperial  duties,  as  between  Diocletian 
and  his  colleague,  nor  a  friendly  division  of  territory,  as  be- 
tween Arcadius  and  Honorius  (§  572).  It  was  in  theory  the  ) 
restoration  of  the  seat  of  the  one  universal  Empire  to  Rome.  \ 
In  fact,  it  created  two  rival  empires,  each  calling  itself  The 
Roman  Empire,  and  looking  on  the  other  as  a  usurpation. 
Charles  is  said  commonly  to   have    "  revived "  the  Western 

mind  by  assuming  the  style  of  emperor  while  merely  ruler  of  France  (1852- 
1870).    The  first  Napoleon  was  really  an  emperor. 

1  Besides  the  account  in  Emerton  and  Adams,  see  especially  Bryce,  50-58 
and  67-71 ;  Sheppard,  Fall  of  Rome,  496  ff. ;  Bury,  II. ;  and  Freeman,  in  His- 
torical Essays,  First  Series  {^Holy  Roman  Empire). 


518  THE   EMPIRE   OF  CHARLEMAGNE.  [§644 

Empire.  This  is  essentially  correct  if  we  look  at  results,  but  in 
theory,  and  in  the  speech  of  men  of  his  day,  he  was  the  suc- 
cessor, not  of  Romulus  Augustulus  (§  514),  but  of  Constantine 
VI.*,  just  deposed  at  Constantinople.  In  course  of  time,  to  be 
sure,  men  had  to  recognize  that  there  were  two  Empires  as 
there  had  come  to  be  two  branches  of  the  Christian  Church, 
but  to  the  men  of  the  West,  their  Empire,  as  their  Church, 
remained  the  only  legitimate  one. 

644.  Distinctive  Character  of  the  Western  Empire.  —  Neither 
Empire  was  really  Koman.  The  Eastern  grew  more  and  more 
Oriental,  until  it  ended  in  1453  a.d.  when  the  Turks  captured 
Constantinople.  The  Western  grew  more  and  more  Teutonic, 
until  it  ended  in  1806,  before  which  time  its  rulers  had  shrunk 
into  little  more  than  dukes  of  Austria.^  Both  Empires  con- 
tinued to  stand  for  civilization  as  against  barbarism  :  the  East- 
ern, however,  was  henceforth  largely  passive,  and  calls  for 
little  attention  in  European  history;  the  active  and  positive 
forces  were  found  in  the  Western.  The  Eastern  Empire 
warded  off  from  Europe  inroads  of  Asiatic  barbarism,  and 
served  as  a  storeliouse  of  the  old  culture.  The  Western  Em- 
pire learned  from  the  Eastern  some  of  its  civilization,  and 
extended  Christianity  and  good  order  in  Central  Europe.^ 

The  new  Western  Empire,  too,  while  one  in  theory  with  the 
old  Empire  of  Augustus  and  Constantine  the  Orreat,  differed 
from  it  almost  as  widely  as  from  the  Byzantine  Empire.  Two 
distinctions  should  be  especially  noted. 

a.  It  was  European,  and  even  Teutonic,  rather  than  Medi- 
terranean, both  in  area  and  character.  Charlemagne  and  his 
successors  had  to  be  crowned  in  Rome,  but  the  German  Rhine, 
not  the  Italian  Tiber,  was  the  real  center  of  their  state.  The 
Greek  and  Oriental  influences  were  almost  wholly  excluded, 
and  Roman  ideas,  so  far  as  they  remained,  were  worked  out  by 
rulers  of  Teutonic  blood. 

1  This  story  belongs  to  modern  history. 

2  Cf .  Bury,  II.  516. 


§  645]  REORGANIZATION.  519 

b.  It  represented  a  federation  of  the  Papacy  and  the  impe- 
rial power.  This  began  in  the  coronation  and  the  donation 
of  Pippin,  and  was  confirmed  by  the  Christmas  day  corona- 
tion of  Charles.  In  later  times  the  union  was  to  be  expressed 
in  the  name,  The  Holy  Eoman  Empire.  The  empire  had  its 
spiritual  as  well  as  its  temporal  head ;  but  the  limits  of 
authority  were  not  well  defined,  and  from  the  resulting  dis- 
sensions, in  large  measure,  was  to  come  the  decline  of  the 
imperial  structure. 

III.     REORGANIZATION. 

645.   Political:     Counts    and    Missi    Dominici;    Mayfields. — 

Pippin  had  begun  to  replace  native  and  hereditary  Dukes  with 
Counts  dependent  upon  the  royal  will.  Charles,  extended  the 
practice  and  made  it  one  of  his  two  chief  agencies  in  strengthen- 
ing his  authority  over  his  wide-lying  dominions.  But  these  counts 
also  tended  to  become  local  leaders,  and  to  transmit  their  office 
and  power  to  their  sons.  To  move  them  from  place  to  place 
would  have  been  opposed  to  all  the  feeling  of  the  time,  and  it 
would  have  been  wasteful  of  power,  especially  on  the  Slav 
frontier,  where  the  most  powerful  counts  protected  the 
"marches"  of  the  empire.  So,  to  guard  against  the  decen- 
tralizing tendency,  Charles  introduced  a  new  set  of  officers 
known  as  Missi  Dominici,  or  king's  messengers.  The  empire 
was  divided  into  districts,  each  containing  the  governments  of 
several  counts,  and  to  each  such  district,  each  year  there  was 
sent  a  pair  of  Missi  (usually  a  count  and  a  bishop),  to  examine 
the  administration  and  to  act,  for  the  year,  as  the  emperor's 
self,  overseeing  the  work  of  local  counts,  correcting  injustice, 
holding  popular  assemblies,  and  reporting  all  to  the  emperor.^ 
To  keep  in  touch  with  the  popular  will,  and  to  find  out  the 
needs  of  all  parts  of  the  Prankish  kingdom,  Charles  made  use 
of  the  old  Teutonic  assemblies  in  fall  and  spring.  All  free- 
men of  the  Franks  could  attend  and  speak.     Sometimes,  espe- 

1  Cf.  §  75.    Read  Emerton,  220,  221,  and  Adams,  160-162. 


520  THE   EMPIRE   OF   CHARLEMAGNE.  [§646 

cially  when  war  was  to  be  debated,  the  "  Mayfield  "  gathering 
comprised  the  bulk  of  the  adult  males  of  the  Frank  nation. 
At  other  times  it  was  made  up  almost  wholly  of  the  greater 
nobles  and  churchmen.  The  assembly  was  not  in  any  sense  a 
legislature.  Legislation  was  in  the  hands  of  the  king ;  and,  at 
most,  the  assemblies  could  only  bring  to  bear  upon  him  the 
weight  of  public  opinion. 

646.  Relations  to  the  Church.  —  In  the  lifetime  of  Charles 
himself,  the  popes  secured  little  of  the  control  they  were  after- 
ward to  exercise  in  the  Empire.  Charles  promulgated  religious 
regulations  through  these  popular  assemblies.  He  appointed 
all  bishops  or  controlled  their  appointment,  and  heard  appeals 
from  the  bishops  and  archbishops.  He  also  called  special 
church  councils,  at  which  he  presided  in  person ;  the  decrees 
he  sanctioned  himself,  and  in  them,  in  one  case  at  least,^  he 
declared  doctrines  false  that  had  just  been  approved  by  the 
Pope. 

647.  Schools.  —  In  that  age,  the  chief  foe  of  a  great  reformer 
like  Charlemagne,  was  the  dense  ignorance  even  of  the  higher 
classes.  Charles,  did  much  to  correct  this.  In  particular  he 
secured  more  learned  men  for  the  clergy.  Monastic  and  epis- 
copal schools  were  opened  throughout  the  empire ;  and  for  the 
young  nobles  of  the  court,  Charles  established  the  famous 
School  of  the  Palace.  For  teachers,  learned  men  were  sought 
out  in  north  Italy,  where  the  Eoman  culture  best  survived ; 
and  even  from  England  the  scholar  Alcuin  came  to  direct  the 
Palace  School. 

IV.   SUMMARY. 

648.  The  Great  Powers  in  8oo  a.d.  —  Thus  at  the  close  of 
Ancient  History  the  world  is  divided  between  four  Great 
Powers  —  the  two  Christian  Empires  and  the  two  rival  Mo- 
hammedan Caliphates.^ 

1  Special  topic :  the  council  of  Frankfort,  794  a.d. 

2  The  Caliph  Haroun  al  Raschid  at  Bagdad,  the  hero  of  the  AraUan  Nights, 


§  649]  SUMMARY.  621 

The  Christian  states  were  in  some  sense  rivals;  each  was 
bitterly  hostile  to  its  Mohammedan  neighbor ;  and  each  in 
consequence  was  to  some  degree  on  friendly  terms  with  the 
Mohammedan  power  bordering  the  other.  The  only  one  of 
the  four  states  that  was  to  stand,  finally  for  progress  was  the 
Western  Empire,  with  its  fringes  in  the  Teutonic  states  of 
Denmark  and  England. 

649.  The  Place  of  Charlemagne  in  History.  —  Charles  the 
Great  seemed  to  have  restored  order  to  Europe.  It  is  true  he 
was  ahead  of  his  age,  and,  after  his  death,  his  great  design 
in  many  respects  broke  to  pieces ;  but  enough  survived  so  that 
his  long  reign  of  nearly  fifty  years  closes  Ancient  History  and 
begins  a  new  era.  Charles  himself  is  the  greatest  man  of 
Europe  for  a  thousand  years  —  from  the  fifth  to  the  fifteenth 
century.  He  stands  for  four  great  movements :  the  expan- 
sion of  civilization  in  Western  Europe  and  the  creation  of  one 
great  Romano-Teutonic  state ;  the  revival  of  the  Koman  Empire 
in  the  West,  as  the  outward  form  of  this  state ;  organization 
and  reconstruction  in  Church  and  State ;  and  a  revival  of 
learning.  In  all  these,  Charles  built  upon  the  work  of  his 
father  and  grandfather,  but  his  own  genius  decided  the  pecul- 
iar character  of  the  result.  In  the  eighth  century  there 
were  four  great  forces  contending  for  Western  Europe,  —  the 
Greek  Empire,  the  Saracens,  the  Franks,  and  the  Papacy.  By 
the  year  800,  the  Carolingians  had  excluded  two  and  had  fused 
the  other  two  into  the  revived  Roman  Empire. 

For  centuries  more,  this  Roman  Empire  was  to  be  the  most 
important  institution  in  Europe. 

It  embodied  the  Roman  idea  of  universal  centralized  au- 
thority, and  it  served  to  counteract  the  Teutonic  over-tendency 
to  individualism  and  separation.  Barbarism  and  anarchy  were 
again  to  break  in  after  the  death  of  the  great  Charles ;  nay, 

was  Charlemagne's  contemporary,  in  an  exchange  of  courtesies,  the  Saracen 
sent  to  the  Frankish  king  a  white  elephant  and  a  curious  water  clock  that 
struck  the  hours. 


522  THE   EMPIRE   OF   CHARLEMAGNE.  [§649 

even  some  of  his  own  institutions,  like  the  growing  feudalism, 
were  instinct  with  the  Teutonic  spirit  of  decentralization  and 
political  disorder ;  but  the  imperial  idea  to  which  he  had  given 
new  life  and  new  meaning  was  to  be  for  ages  the  inspiration 
and  rallying  point  of  the  best  minds  as  they  strove  against 
these  anarchic  forces  in  behalf  of  order,  peace,  and  progress. 


For  Further  Reading.  —  Good  brief  treatments  in  Emerton,  180- 
235;  Adams,  154-169;  and  Church,  110-137.  Einhard's  contemporary 
Life  of  Charlemagne  is  published  in  Harper's  Half-Hour  Series  (15  cents). 
For  longer  modern  studies,  Hodgkin's  Charles  the  Great,  Mombert's 
Charles  the  Greats  Cutt's  Charlemagne^  Wells'  Age  of  Charlemagne 
(P^pochs  of  Church  History),  MuUinger's  Schools  of  Charles  the  Great, 
West's  Alcuin,  Sergeant's  Franks,  Bryce's  Holy  Boman  Empire. 


EXERCISES  ON  PART  VI. 

1.  Topical  and  "  catchword  "  reviews :  (a)  The  Church  (see  Part  V. 
also);  (6)   The  Franks ;  (c)   The  Empire. 

2.  Dates  to  be  added  for  events  subsequent  to  the  Teutonic  invasions  : 

378  A.D.  476  A.D.  732  a.d. 

410  ^  622  800 

What  events  connected  with  the  invasions  can  the  student  locate,  in 
order,  between  378  and  476  ?  What  events  in  the  history  of  the  empire 
between  476  and  732  ?     (Similar  tests  for  other  periods.) 

3.  Battles.    Add  five  to  previous  lists  (see  p.  246). 

4.  Lists  of  questions  by  the  class,  as  on  earlier  Parts  or  Chapters. 
(The  following  are  offered  as  suggestive  on  this  Part  of  the  History : 
Name  the  first  Carolingian  king.  Name  a  battle  fought  by  Clovis.  Name 
the  two  diverse  civilizations  embraced  within  the  empire  in  the  third 
century.  What  became  of  the  Visigoths?  Of  the  Ostrogoths?  Who 
was  the  great  opponent  of  Arius  ?  What  principle  underlies  all  the  forms 
of  the  Ordeal  ?  Name  another  method  of  proof  employed  by  the  Germans, 
besides'the  Ordeal.) 


APPENDIX. 


I.    TABLE  OF  EVENTS  AND  DATES.* 


THE  VARIOUS    STATES  OF    THE    MEDITERRANEAN  WORLD. 


5000 

B.C. 

or  4500  .  . 

3800 
2800 

(about)  .  . 
(about)  .  . 

2700 

2500- 

-1500  .  .  . 

2400 

(about)  .  . 

2234 

2000 

(about)  .  . 

1800 

(about)  .  . 

1600 

(about)  .  . 

Organized  states  appear  in  the  lower  valleys  of  the 

Nile  and  the  Euphrates. 
Sargon  the  Elder. 
The  political  center  in  Egypt  moves  up  the  river 

from  Memphis  to  Thebes. 
Approximate  date  of  a  voluminous  Chaldean  litera- 
ture (§  45). 
The  Mycenaean  civilization  on  the  coasts  and  islands 

of  the  Aegean  (§  87).  Schliemann's  Troy  destroyed, 

2500  B.C. 
The  political  center  in  Chaldea  moves  up  the  river  to 

Babylon. 
Beginning  of  the  recorded  astronomical  observations 

at  Babylon,  found  there  by  Alexander  nineteen 

hundred  years  later  (§  45). 
Chaldean  rule  already  extended  over  Syria. 
The  Hyksos  conquest  of  Egypt. 
Abraham. 

Beginning  of  the  Assyrian  state. 
The  Hebrews  enter  Egypt. 
Expulsion  of  the  Hyksos  from  Egypt. 
Thutmosis  III.  of  Egypt  conquers  Asia  to  the  Tigris. 
Phoenician  maritime  supremacy  in  the  Aegean. 


1  The  student  should  have  access  to  Ploetz'  Epitome  of  Universal  History 
(Houghton,  Mifflin  and  Co.).  Chief  reliance  has  been  placed  upon  that  work 
in  preparing  these  tables.  In  the  earlier  centuries,  several  events  that  come 
near  together  are  sometimes  placed  under  one  date, — the  dates  for  these 
periods  being  only  approximations,  at  best. 

523 


524 


APPENDIX. 


B.C. 

1380  (about) 
1320  (about) 


1280  (about) 
1200  or  1100 


1085  (?)  .  . 
1055  (?)  .  . 
1015-975  (?) 
1000  (?)  . 


1000-900 

975  (?) 

850  (?) 
800-600 

776      . 

753 

752 
745 
730 

722 

700 
682 

672 
653 
650-500 


Kameses  II. 

The  Libyan  attack  upon  Egypt.  The  Hebrew  Exo- 
dus. 

Assyria  attains  a  brief  supremacy  over  Chaldea, 

Rise  of  the  Hittite  Empire  in  Syria. 

The  Achaeans  conquer  Southern  Greece  from  the 
Ionic  Pelasgians  (§  88). 

The  Hebrews  enter  Palestine. 

The  Trojan  War  (?).     Homer's  Troy  destroyed. 

Perfection  of  the  Phoenician  alphabet.  Tyre  supreme 
in  Phoenicia. 

Glory  of  the  First  Assyrian  Empire  under  Tiglath- 
Pileser  I. 

Kingdom  of  the  Hebrews  under  Saul. 

David,  king  of  the  Hebrews. 

Rule  of  Solomon. 

Zoroaster. 

Early  Homeric  poems. 

The  Dorian  invasion. 

Kingship  at  Athens  limited  after  the  death  of  Codrus. 

Greek  colonization  of  the  islands  of  the  Aegean  and 
the  Asiatic  coast. 

The  Hebrew  state  divided  into  the  kingdoms  of 
Judah  and  Israel. 

Carthage  founded. 

Wider  Greek  colonization  :  coasts  of  the  Black  Sea, 
Magna  Graecia,  Thrace,  and  elsewhere. 

First  recorded  Olympiad.  (Probably  not  a  contem- 
porary record,  but  supplied  or  invented  later.) 

Legendary  date  for  the  founding  of  Rome. 

Life  archons  at  Athens  give  way  to  ten-year  archons. 

Second  Assyrian  Empire  ;  Tiglath-Pileser  II. 

Egypt  conquered  by  Ethiopia. 

Sargon  II.  carries  the  Ten  Tribes  of  Israel  into  the 
Assyrian  captivity. 

King  Pheidon  at  Argos. 

Nine  annual  archons  at  Athens  replace  the  earlier 
and  longer-termed  archons. 

Egypt  conquered  by  Assyria. 

Egyptian  revolt ;  independence  under  Psammetichus. 

The  age  of  the  Greek  lyric  poets;  chief  centers  in 
Ionia. 


TABLE  OF  EVENTS  AND  DATES. 


525 


B.C. 

640  . 
632  . 
625  (?) 
624  . 
612  . 
610-595 
610  (about) 
606  . 
604-561 
594-593 
586      . 


560  . 
560-527 
558  . 
558-529 
545  . 
538  . 
537  . 
525  . 
522-485 
522-448 


Revolt  of  the  Medes  against  Assyria. 

Scythian  irruption. 

The  new  Babylonian  Empire. 

Archonship  of  Draco  at  Athens. 

Cylon's  insurrection  at  Athens. 

Neco  ;  circumnavigation  of  Africa. 

Solon  captures  Salamis. 

Destruction  of  Nineveh. 

Nebuchadnezzar, 

Archonship  of  Solon. 

Nebuchadnezzar  captures  Jerusalem  and  carries  the 

Jews  into  the  Babylonian  captivity. 
Croesus  establishes  Lydia  as  a  great  power. 
Peisistratus  at  Athens. 
Founding  of  the  Persian  Empire. 
Cyrus  the  Great. 

Cyrus  begins  to  conquer  the  Greeks  of  Asia  Minor. 
Babylon  becomes  a  Persian  province. 
The  Jews  sent  back  to  Palestine  by  Cyrus. 
Egypt  becomes  a  Persian  province. 
Darius  I.  of  Persia. 
Pindar. 


GREECE. 

ROME. 

B.C. 

B.C. 

510.     . 

.    Expulsion  of  the  Peis- 

510.     . 

.     Expulsion  of  the  Tar- 

istratidae. 

quins. 

509.     . 

.     Constitution    of    Cleis- 
thenes. 

500-494 

.     The  Ionic  revolt. 

494.     . 

.     First  secession  of  the 
Plebs. 

492-479 

.     Attack  by  Persia  and 
Carthage. 

493.     . 

.     First  plebeian  tribunes. 

492.     . 

.     First  Persian  invasion  ; 
Mount  Athos. 

490.     . 

.     Marathon. 

486.     . 

.     Agrarian    proposal    of 

483  .     . 

Ostracism  of  Aristeides; 
adoption  of  Themis- 
tocles'  naval  policy. 

Spurius  Cassius. 

480.     . 

Thermopylae,    Artemi- 
sium,    Salamis,    Hi- 
mera. 

526 


APPENDIX. 


GREECE  (continued). 


479.     . 

.     Plataea,  Mycale. 

477.     . 

.     Confederacy  of    Delos 

organized. 

472.    . 

.     Themistocles     ostra- 

cized. 

469.     . 

.     Revolt  of  Naxos. 

468.     . 

.     Eurymedon. 

462.     . 

.     Cimon  leads  an  Athe- 

nian   force    to    aid 

Sparta    against    her 

helots. 

461.     . 

.     Rupture  between  Sparta 

and  Athens ;    ostra- 

cism of  Cimon. 

461-429 

.     Leadership  of  Pericles. 

459.     . 

.     The  Athenian  expedi- 

tion to  Egypt  to  aid  a 

revolt  against  Persia. 

468.    . 

.    The    Long    Walls    at 

Athens. 

457.     . 

.    Tanagra. 

456.     . 

.     Aegina    conquered    by 

Athens. 

464.    . 

.     Athenian    disaster    in 

Egypt. 

446.     . 

.    Loss  of  Boeotia  by  Ath- 

ens ;  loss  of  Megaris.' 

446.     . 

.    Thirty     Years'     Truce 

between  Athens  and 

Sparta. 

Sparta. 

444. 
443. 

488.    .     . 

The    Parthenon    com- 
pleted. 

431-404 

Peloponnesian  War. 

429 .     . 

Death  of  Pericles. 

421  .     . 

Peace  of  Nicias. 

416-413 

The  Sicilian  expedition. 

411.     . 

The  "Four  Hundred" 
at  Athens. 

409. 

ROME  {continued). 


462 


461-449 


445 


Proposal  of  Terentillius 
for  written  laws. 


The    Decemvirs ;    the 

twelve  tables ;  sec- 
ond secession  of  the 
plebs ;  Valerian- 

Horatian  Laws. 

Intermarriage  between" 
the  orders  legalized. 

Consular  tribunes. 

Censorship  established. 


Plebeians     attain    the 
quaestorship. 


TABLE  OF  EVENTS  AND  DATES. 


527 


GREECE  (continued). 


ROME  (continued). 


406.     . 

.    Arginusae. 

405.     . 

.    Aegospotami. 

404.     . 

.     Surrender  of   Athens ; 
the  thirty  tyrants. 

404-371 

.     Supremacy  of  Sparta. 

403.     . 

.     Thrasybulus  frees  Ath- 

401  .     . 

ens. 
.     Cyrus  the  Younger  and 

400.     . 

.     Plebeians     attain    the 

the    Ten    Thousand 

consular  tribuneship. 

Greeks. 

399.     . 

.    Execution  of  Socrates. 

396.     . 

.     Agesilaus  invades  Asia. 

395-387 

.     The  Corinthian  War. 

394.     . 

.     Cnidus. 

393.     . 

.     Athens' Long  Walls  re- 
built. 

390.     . 

.     Iphicrates'  peltasts  de- 

390.    . 

.    Rome    sacked   by  the 

stroy  a  Spartan  bat- 

Gauls. 

talion. 

387.     . 

.     Peace  of  Antalcidas. 

387.     . 

.  The  Tribes  increased 
to  twenty-five. 

383-379 

.     Sparta  crushes  the  Chal- 
cidic  Confederacy. 

377.     . 

.     New  Athenian  League. 

371.     . 

.    Leuctra. 

367.     . 

.    Th>Licinian  Laws. 

371-362 

.     Theban  leadership. 

366.     . 

.     Plebeians     attain     the 

371.     . 

.     Megalopolis. 

consulship  ;  praetor- 
ship  established. 

362.     . 

.     Battle     of    Mantinea; 
death  of  Epaminon- 
das. 

359-336 

.     Philip,  king  of  Macedon. 

358.     . 

.  The  Tribes  increased 
to  twenty -seven. 

356.     . 

.  Plebeians  attain  the 
dictatorship. 

351.     . 

.     First  Philippic  of  De- 

351.    . 

.    Plebeians     attain    the 

mosthenes. 

censorship. 

348.     . 

.     Death  of  Plato. 

345-337 

.     Timoleon  the  Liberator. 

343-341 

.     First  Samnite  War. 

528 

APPENDIX. 

GREECE  (continued). 

ROME  (continued). 

B.C. 

B.C. 

338.     . 

.     Chaeronea. 

340-338 

.     The  Latin  War. 

337.     . 

.  The  plebeians  attain  the 
praetorship. 

336-323 

.    Rule  of  Alexander  the 
Great. 

334.     . 

.     The  Granicus. 

333.     . 

.     Issus. 

332.     . 

.     Siege   of  Tyre ;    Alex- 

332.    . 

.     The    Tribes    increased 

andria  founded. 

to  twenty-nine. 

331.     . 

.     Arbela. 

325.     . 

.     Expedition  of  Nearchus. 

326-304 

.     Second  Samnite  War. 

323.     . 

.     Alexander's  death. 

323-276 

.     Wars  of  the  Succession. 

322.     . 

.     Death  of  Aristotle. 

321  .     . 

.     Caudine  Forks. 

312  .     . 

.  Appius  Claudius,  cen- 
sor. 

301.     . 

.   Ipsus. 

300  .     . 

,  Plebeians  admitted  to 
the  colleges  of  augurs 
and  pontiffs. 

299.     . 

.  The  Tribes  reach  the 
number  of  thirty- 
three. 

298-290 

.     Third  Samnite  War. 

287.     . 

.     Hortensian  Law. 

285-247 

280.     . 
278.     . 


245. 


241 


Ptolemy    Philadelphus 

in  Egypt. 
The  Achaean  League. 
The  Gallic  invasion. 


Aratus,  general  of  the 
Achaean  League. 

Agis  at  Sparta ;  failure 
and  death. 


280-275 


275.     . 
266.     . 

264-241 


241-238 


War  between  Rome  and 
Pyrrhus ;  Rome  ab- 
sorbs Greek  Italy. 

Beneventum. 

Conquest  of  the  Gauls 
to  the  Rubicon. 

First  Punic  War ;  most 
of  Sicily  becomes 
Roman. 

The  Mercenary  War  in 
Africa ;  Sardinia  and 
Corsica  become  Ro- 
man. 


TABLE   OF  EVENTS  AND  DATES. 


529 


B.C. 

225-222 


ROME  (^continued). 

The  Gallic  War ;  Cisal- 
pine Gaul  becomes 
Roman. 


GREECE  {continued). 

B.C. 

236  .     .     .     Struggle    between    the 

League  and  Sparta ; 

Cleomenes'    reforms 

at  Sparta. 
221  .  .     Cleomenes  crushed  by 

Macedon     and     the 

League. 
220  .     .     .     Marked      decline      in 

the    Graeco-oriental 

kingdoms. 


ROME. 

[From  220  b.c.  the  rest  of  the  world  is  drawn  rapidly  into  the  stream. 
of  Roman  development.] 

218-201  Second  Punic  War ;  Spain  a  Roman  province. 

216 .     .  .  Cannae. 

215-205  .  First  Macedonian  War. 

212  .     .  .  Capture  of  Syracuse  ;  all  Sicily  becomes  Roman. 

207  .     .  .  Battle  of  tha  Metaurus. 

202  .     .  .  Zama. 

200-196  .  Second  Macedonian  War. 

197  .     .  .  Cynoscephalse  ;  Macedonia  a  dependent  ally. 

192-189  .  War  with  Syria. 

189  .     .  .  Magnesia ;  Syria  a  dependent  ally. 

171-167  .  Third  Macedonian  War. 

168  ,     .  .  Pydna. 

167-130  .  The  Jews,   under  the  Maccabees,   become  independent  of 

Syria. 

149-146  .  Third  Punic  War. 

146  .     .  .  Destruction  of  Carthage  and  Corinth  ;  Macedonia  and  Africa 

become  Roman  provinces  ;  Greece  dependent. 

137-132  .  First  Slave  War  in  Sicily. 

133  .     .  .  The  Province  of  Asia  organized. 

183  .     .  .  Tiberius  Gracchus,  tribune.                                                      * 

123-122  .  Caius  Gracchus,  tribune. 

112-106  .  The  Jugurthine  War. 

102 .     .  .  Aquae  Sextiae. 

91-88   .  .  The  Social  War. 

88    .     .  ,  Sulpicius,  tribune  ;  Sulla  masters  Rome. 


530 


APPENDIX. 


B.C. 

88-84   .  .  First  Mithridatic  War. 

87    .     .  .  Cinna  and  Marius. 

83-82  .  .  Civil  War  between  Sulla  and  the  democrats. 

83-81    .  .  Second  Mithridatic  War. 

82-79   .  .  Sulla,  dictator. 

76    .     ;  .  Pompey  goes  to  Spain  against  Sertorius. 

74-63  .  .  Third  Mithridatic  War. 

73-71   .  .  Spartacus'  rising. 

70    .     .  .  Pompey  and  Crassus,  consuls. 

67-60   .  .  Pompey's  special  commissions  against  the  Cilician  pirates 

and  against  Mithridates. 

63    .     .  .  Pompey  makes  the  Jews  a  tributary  state. 

63    .     .  .  Cicero,  consul ;  Catiline's  conspiracy. 

60-53   .  .  The  First  Triumvirate. 

59    .     .  .  Caesar's  consulship. 

58-50   .  .  Caesar's  conquest  of  Gaul. 

49    .     .  .  Caesar's  invasion  of  Britain, 

49-45   .  .  Civil  war  between  Caesar  and  the  oligarchic  "  Republicans." 

48    .     .  .  Pharsalus. 

46    .     .  .  Thapsus. 

45    .     .  .  Munda. 

44    .     .  .  Caesar  assassinated. 

43-31   .  .  Second  Triumvirate. 

42    .     .  .  Philippi. 

31    .     .  .  Actium. 
27  B.C.-14  A.D.    Augustus,  emperor. 

[For  the  reigns  of  the  emperors  to  476  a.d.,  see  §§  458-461,  516-519, 
and  572-573.] 


A.D. 

9      . 

43    . 

69  . 

70  . 
79    . 
85    . 
101-106 
161-180 
212.     . 
226.     . 
272.     . 


Hermann's  victory  over  Varus  in  the  Teutoberg  forest. 

Beginning  of  the  conquest  of  Britain. 

The  year  of  anarchy  after  the  death  of  Nero. 

Destruction  of  Jerusalem  by  Titus. 

Destruction  of  Pompeii  by  an  eruption  of  Vesuvius. 

Conquest  of  Britain  completed  by  Agricola. 

Conquest  of  Dacia  by  Trajan. 

Marcus  Aurelius  Antoninus,  emperor. 

All  freemen  in  the  empire  become  Roman  citizens. 

Rise  of  the  new  Persian  Empire. 

Zenobia,  Queen  of  Palmyra,  conquered  by  Aurelian. 


TABLE  OF  EVENTS  AND  DATES. 


531 


A.D 

284. 

312. 
325  . 
357  . 
376. 
378. 
402  . 
406  . 
410. 
414-419 
429  . 
449. 
451  . 
455. 
476. 


Reorganization  by  Diocletian. 

Edict  of  Milan  by  Constantine.  ^ 

Council  of  Nicaea. 

Julian  repulses  the  Alemanni. 

The  Visigoths  admitted  into  the  Empire. 

Adrianople. 

Alaric  invades  Italy. 

Vandals  invade  Gaul  and  Spain. 

Alaric  sacks  Rome. 

Visigoths  settle  in  Spain. 

Vandals  invade  Africa. 

Saxons  (Jutes)  invade  Britain. 

Attila  repulsed  at  ChUlons. 

Rome  sacked  by  the  Vandals. 

Odoacer  deposes  Romulus  Augustulus. 


486» .     . 

489-493 

493-553 

496.     . 
--  527-565 

533-553 

568  , 
-590. 
—610-641 

622. 

628-638 
.    687  . 

711  . 
-717. 

732. 

751. 

768. 

—771. 

797. 

—  8oa. 

— 814. 


TEUTONIC  AND   ROMAN  EUROPE. 

Clovis  at  Soissons. 

Theodoric  conquers  Odoacer. 

Ostrogothic  kingdom  in  Italy. 

Clovis  at  Strassburg ;  accepts  Catholic  Christianity. 

Justinian  I.,  emperor. 

Belisarius  and  Narses  reconquer  Italy  for  the  empire. 

The  Lombards  enter  Italy. 

Gregory  the  Great  becomes  Pope. 

Heraylius,  emperor,  saves  Europe  from  the  Persians. 

The  Mohammedan  Hegira. 

Dagobert. 

Battle  of  Testry. 

The  Saracens  enter  Spain. 

Leo  III.,  at  Constantinople,  repulses  the  main  Saracenic 

invasion  of  Europe. 
Charles  the  Hammerer  repulses  the  Spanish  Mohammedans 

at  Tours. 
Pippin,  king  of  the  Franks. 
Karl  and  Karlomann  succeed  Pippin. 
Karl  (Charlemagne)  sole  king  of  the  Franks. 
Irene  seizes  the  imperial  throne  at  Constantinople. 
Charlemagne  crowned  emperor  at  Rome. 
Death  of  Charlemagne. 


532  APPENDIX. 


II.    A  CLASSIFIED  BIBLIOGRAPHY.^ 

The  following  works  are  classified,  first  by  subject,  accord- 
ing to  the  general  treatment  in  this  text-book ;  and  then,  under 
each  subject,  in  two  groups.  In  the  judgment  of  the  writer, 
all  high  school  libraries  should  contain  Group  I.  under  each 
division,  or  an  equivalent;  and  large  high  schools  may,  with 
advantage,  possess  Group  II.  also.  A  reduction  of  from 
twenty  to  thirty  per  cent  from  the  list  price  can  usually 
be  obtained.  For  a  discussion  of  the  value  of  the  principal 
works,  it  is  well  to  consult  Charles  Kendall  Adams'  Manual 
of  Historical  Literature  (Harpers). 

Works  marked  with  a  *  should  be  present  in  more  than  one 
copy. 

When  a  book  belongs  to  a  series,  the  name  of  the  series,  in 
quotation  marks,  is  given  in  a  parenthesis  after  the  title.  In 
the  case  of  translations,  the  translator's  name  is  sometimes 
given  after  the  title,  in  parenthesis. 


PRIMITIVE  SOCIETY ;  RACE.     (See  Introduction.) 

Group  I. 

Bkinton  (D.  G.),  The  American  Race.     $2.00.     New  York         .  1891. 

Chaillu  (P.  B.),  The  Viking  Age.     $7.50.     Scribners         .        .  1889. 

Dodge  (R.  J.),  Our  Wild  Indians.     $2.50.     Hartford  .         .         .  1882. 

Grinnell  (George  B.),  77te/w(?m»is  o/ To-cZay.  $5.00.  Chicago  1900. 
UoKRHES  (Morris),  Primitive  Man.    $0.40.    "  Temple  Primers." 

Dent  &  Co.,  London 1901. 

K^ARY  (CY.),  The  Dawn  of  History.  81.25.  Scribners  .  .  1895. 
Mason  (O.  T.),  Woman'' s  Share  in  Primitive   Culture.     $1.75. 

Appleton 1894. 

Sergi  (G.),  The  Mediterranean  Pace.    $1.00.     Scribners     .        .  1901. 

1  The  following  lists  do  not  include  all  the  works  referred  to  in  the  text, 
because  some  there  mentioned  contain  only  a  few  pages  suitable  for  students 
in  secondary  schools. 


A  CLASSIFIED   BIBLIOGRAPHY.  533 


Group  II. 

GoMME  (G.  L.),  Ethnology  and  Folklore.    $.75.     London    .        .  1892. 

Lang  (Andrew),  Custom  and  Myth.     $1.50.     Longmans      .        .  1885. 

Myth,  Mitual,  and  Eeligion.     2  vols.     $4.00.     Longmans      .  1887. 

RiPhBY  (^W.  Z.),  The  Races  of  Europe.  2  vols.    $5.00.    Appleton  1899. 

Spencer  (Herbert),  Ceremonial  Institutions.    $1.25.    Appleton  1880. 

Taylor  (Isaac),  Origin  of  the  Aryans.     $1.00.    London     .         .  1892. 

Triton  iB.B.)^  The  Early  History  of  Mankind.     $3.50.     Holt       .  1870. 


ORIENTAL  HISTORY.     (See  Part  L) 

Group  I. 

Hosmer  (J.  K.),  TAe  Jeios  ("Nations").  $1.25.  Putnams  .  1885. 
Maspero,  Life  in  Ancient  Egypt  and  Assyria.  $1.50.  Appleton  1892. 
Egyptian  Archaeology.     $3.00.     London        ....     1889. 

These  two  volumes  last-named  can  be  spared,  perhaps,  if  the 
next  and  more  valuable  work  is  present. 
Dawn  of  Civilization.    $7.50.    Appleton        ....     1896. 

The  first  of  three  large  volumes  dealing  with  Oriental  history ; 
it  brings  the  story  down  to  about  1600  b.c.     The  two  other 
works,  as  less  essential,  are  given  in  Group  II. 
VKTmii  (W.U.Y.),  History  of  Egypt.     2  vols.     $3.00.    London.     1896. 
^ecort^s  o/f^e  Pas«»( edited  by  Say ce).     6  vols.    $6.00.    London. 

Translations  of  inscriptions,  with  comments.  .        .         .    1888-1892. 
Sayce  (A.  H.),  Assyria:  Its  Princes,  Priests,  and  People.    $1.00.     1890. 

Social  Life  among  the  Assyrians  and  Babylonians.     $1.00     .     1893. 

Fresh  Light  from  Ancient  Monuments.    $1.00.       .         .        .     1883. 

All  three  published  by  The  Religious  Tract  Society,  London. 

Babylonians  a7id  Assyrians.    $1.50.     Scribners      .•       .         .     1889. 

— -  Early  History  of  the  Hebrews.    $2.00.     Macmillan.         .        .     1897. 

Group  II. 

Hibbert  Lectures  (The)  for  1892.     $3.00.     Scribners. 

Layard  (A.  H.),  Nineveh  and  Babylon.     $1.50.    Barnes  &  Co., 

New  York 1856. 

McCuRDY  (J.  F.),  History,  Prophecy,  and  the  Monuments.   3  vols. 

$6.00.     Macmillan .         .     1901. 


534  APPENDIX. 

Maspero,  Struggle  of  the  Nations.    $7.50.     Appleton  .         .         .     1897. 

This  follows  The  Dawn  of  Civilization,  mentioned  above,  to 
850  B.C. 
Passing  of  the  Empires.     $7.60.     Appleton    ....     1899. 

This  continues  the  story  of  the  preceding  volume  to  the  Greek 
period. 
M11.VKR  (Sir  AI.FRKD),  England  in  Egypt.     $2.00.     London        .     1894. 

An  excellent  work,  treating  of  modern  conditions. 
Petrie  (W.  M.  F.),  Ten  Years  Digging  in  Egypt.   $1.25.    London     1892. 

Beligion  and  Conscience  in  Egypt.     $2.00.     London      .         .     1892. 

Rawlinson  (George),  Ancient  Empires.    3  vols.    $7.50.     Boston     1870. 

Ancient  Egypt.    2  vols.     $5.00.     Boston        ....     1882. 

Rogers,    History    of  Babylonia    and    Assyria.    2  vols.     $3.00. 

Eaton  &  Mains 1901. 

Sayce  (A.  H.),  A7icient  Empires.     $1.50.     Macmillan  .        .     1884. 


GREEK  HISTORY.    (See  Parts  IL  and  IIL) 

Group  I. 

Sources. 

*  Aristotle,   On  the  Constitution  of  Athens  (Kenyon).      $1.10. 

Macmillan. 

♦Fling,  Studies  in  European  History  (Selections  from  Sources, 
Greek  and  Roman  History).  $0.50.  Ainsworth  &  Co., 
Chicago. 

Herodotus  (translated  by  Macaulay).  2  vols.  $4.50.  Mac- 
millan. . 

*  Homer,  Uiad  (Lang,  Leaf,  and  Meyers).     $1.50.     Macmillan. 

* Od?/ssey  (Butcher  and  Lang).     $1.50.     Macmillan. 

Plutarch,  Lives  (Stewart  and  Long).  4  vols.  $8.00.  Mac- 
millan. 

PoLYBius,    History  (Schuckburgh).     2  vols.     $6.00.     Macmillan. 
Thucydides,  History  of  the  Peloponnesian  War  (Jowett).    2  vols. 

$6.00.     Boston. 
Xenophon,  Works  (Dakyns).     Vols.  I.-III.     $7.50.    Macmillan. 

Cheaper  translations  can  be  found,  of  course,  as  in  Harper's  Classical 
Library,  but  the  editions  named  above  are  the  most  desirable.  The  trans- 
lations named  in  this  bibliography  have  been  followed,  as  a  rule,  in  the 
quotations  in  the  text. 


A   CLASSIFIED  BIBLIOGRAPHY.  535 


Modern  Accounts. 

Abbott  (E.),  History  of  Greece.    3  vols.    $6.00.    Rivington     1888-1899. 

*  Cox  (G.  W.),  Greeks  and  Persians  ("  Epochs '').  $1.00.  Scribners  1876. 

* The  Athenian  Empu-e  (''ETpochs'').     $1.00.     Scribners      .  1876. 

Tales  of  Ancient  Greece.     $2.00.     London      ....  1878. 

CuRTEis  (A.  M.),  Bise  of  the  Macedonian  Empire  ("Epochs"). 

$1.00.     Scribners jg37 

GxRDSER  (F.),  Neiv  Chaptei's  in  Greek  History.    $3.00.     Putnams  1892. 

Gayley  (C.  M.),  Classic  Myths.     $1.65.     Ginn  &  Co.  .        .         .  1893. 

Grant  (A.  J.),  Greece  in  the  Age  of  Pericles.     $1.25.      Scribners  1893. 

Greenidge,  Greek  Constitutional  History.     $1.50.     Macmillan    .  1896. 

GuERBER  (H.  A.),  Myths  of  Greece  and  Borne.    $1.50.    American 

Book  Co.       . 1893. 

*Koi.^  {Kj)OL.vii),  History  of  Greece.  4  vols.  $10.00.  Mac- 
millan     (1885)   lb5M-1898. 

Jebb  (R.  C),  ^reeA;  ZiYerrt«Mre("  Primers").     $.35.     Macmillan  1878. 

*Mahaffy    (J.    P.),    Survey    of    Greek     Civilization.       $1.00. 

Flood  &  Vincent,  Meadville,  Pa. 1896. 

Social  Life  in  Greece.     $2.50.     Macmillan     ....  1877. 

Alexander's  Empire  {''^?it\o\\^'").     $1.25.     Putnams.        .  1887. 

Marshall    (J.),    Short   History  of  Greek  Philosophy.      $1.10. 

Macmillan 1891. 

Murray,  Handbook  of  Greek  Archaeology.     $6.00.     Scribners      .  1892. 

Tarbell  (F.  B.) ,  History  of  Greek  Art.    $1.00.    Chautauqua  Series  1896. 

*  Wheeler  (Benjamin  Ide),  Alexander  the  Great  ("Heroes"). 

$1.50.     Putnams •  1900. 

Group  II. 

Abbott  (E.),  Pmdes  ("Heroes").    $1.50.     Putnams.       .        .  1895. 

BoTsroRD    (George   W.),    The   Athenian    Constitution.      $1.50. 

Macmillan 1893. 

BLLMfiEK  (H.),  Home  Life  of  the  Greeks.     $2.00.     Cassell    .         .  1893. 

BvLTiycH  (T.),  Age  of  Fable.     $3.00.     Lee  &  Shepard  (1881)1898. 

CouLANGES    (Fustel  de),    The  Ancient   City.      $2.50.      Lee  & 

Shepard 1874. 

Cox  (G.  W.),  Lives  of  Greek  Statesmen.    2  vols.    $2.00.    London  1886. 

Cvmivs  (E.) ,  History  of  Greece.     5  vols,    $10.00.     Scribners      .  1873. 

Tyxvinsos  (T.),  Education  of  the  Greek  People.    $1.50.    Appleton  1894. 

Dodge  (T.  A.),  Alexander  ("Great  Captains").  $5.00.  Hough- 
ton, Mifflin  &  Co 1890. 


1882. 
1892. 
1863. 
1874. 


536  APPENDIX. 

Fowler  (W.  W.),   The  City  State  of  the  Gh'eeks  and  Bomans. 

$1.00.    Macmillan 1893, 

Freeman  (E.  A.),  Historical  Geography  of  Europe.  2  vols.  $5.00. 

Macmillan 

Story  of  Sicily  {''^sXions.'").     $1.25.     Putnams    . 

History  of  Federal  Government.     $3.50.     Macmillan 

Comparative  Politics.     $3.50.     Macmillan 

Historical  Essays.     3  vols.     $6.00.     Macmillan      .         .1871-1880. 

Gilbert    (Gustav),    Greek    Constitutional   Antiquities.     $3.00. 

Sonnenschein 1892. 

Grote  (George),  History  of  Greece.     12  vols.    $18.00.     Harpers,     1849. 
Hall    (H.   R.),     The    Oldest    Civilization    of    Greece.       $2.00. 

Nutt  &  Co.,  London 1901. 

Hogarth  (D.  G.),  Philip  and  Alexander.    $1.50.     London  .     1897. 

Lang  (Andrew),  Corner  and  ^Ae  ^pic.     $2.50.     Longmans  .     1893. 

Lloyd,  The  Age  of  Pericles.     2  vols.     $5.00.     Macmillan     .         .     1875. 
Mahaffy  (J.  P.),  Histoid  of  Greek  Literature.    2  vols.     $5.00. 

Macmillan 1890. 

Greek  Life  and  Thought  (from  Alexander  to  the  Roman  Con- 
quest).    $3.50.     Macmillan  .     ' 1887. 

Problems  in  Greek  History.     $2.50.     Macmillan    .         .         .     1892. 

Egypt  imder  the  Ptolemies.     2  vols.     $5.00.     Macmillan       .     1899 

OuKs  (C.W.  C),  History  of  Greece.     $1.50.     London         .         .     1892. 
Pater  (Walter),  Greek  Studies.     $1.50.     Macmillan  .         .     1895. 

RiDGEWAY  (William),  The  Early  Age  in  Greece.     2  vols.     $5.00. 

Cambridge,  University  Press 1901. 

Sankey  (C),  Spartan  and   Theban   Supremacies  ("Epochs"). 

$1.00.     Scribners 1877. 

Schvchhahdt  (C),  Schliemann's  Excavations.    $4.00.    Macmillan     1891. 
Tsountas  and  Manatt,  Mycenaean  Age.       $5.00.       Houghton, 

Mifflin  &  Co 1896. 

Whibley  (L.),  Greek  Oligarchies.    $1.00.     Macmillan         .         .     1896. 
Political  Parties  at  Athens  in  the  Peloponnesian  War.    $1.00. 

Macmillan 1889. 

Wilson    (Woodrow),    The    State     (revised    edition).      $2.00. 

Heath  &  Co 1898. 

The  following  Greek  writers  are  desirable  also :  — 

Aeschylus  (translated  by  Plumptre).     $1.50.     Routledge,   New 

York. 
Aristophanes  (Select  Plays,  translated  by  Frere).    $0.40  each. 

Routledge,  New  York. 


A  CLASSIFIED  BIBLIOGRAPHY.  537 

Demosthenes,  Orations  (Kennedy).    5  vols.     .|5.00.     Macmillan. 
Euripides,  TForA:s  (Coleridge).    7  vols.     $0.30  each.     Macmillan. 
Plato,  Dialogues  (Jowett).     4  vols.     $8.00.     Scribners. 
Sophocles,  W^orA;s  (Coleridge).     7  vols.    $0.30  each.     Macmillan. 


ROMAN  HISTORY.     (See  Parts  IV.  and  V.) 

Group  I. 

From  the  preceding  list  (Group  I.)  the  works  of  Coulanges,  Fling, 
Fowler,  Freeman,  Polybius,  Wilson. 

Sources. 

*Appian  (translated  by  White).    2  vols.     $3.00.    Macmillan. 

AuRELius  (Marcus  A.  Antoninus),  Thoughts  (translated  by 
Long).     $1,00.     Macmillan. 

*Epictetus  (Selections).  $1.00.  Putnaras  ;  or  Long's  transla- 
tion.    $1.50.     Bohn. 

*  LivY,  translated  by  Spillan.    4  vols.     $4.00.     Macmillan. 
Marcellianus  (A.),  History  (Yonge).     $3.00.     Macmillan. 

*  Pennsylvania  Translations  and  Beprints  from  Original  Sources. 

7  vols.     $1.50  each.     University  of  Pennsylvania         .    1892-1900. 
Suetonius,  The  Twelve  Caesars  (Thompson).     $1.25.     Bohn. 

*  Tacitus.     2  vols.     $3.50.     Macmillan. 

Modem  Authorities.  , 

*  Adams  (G.  B.),   Civilization  during  the  Middle  Ages.     $2.60. 

Scribners 1894. 

Arnold  (T.),  The  Second  Punic  War.     $2.00.     Macmillan   .        .     1849. 

From  Dr.  Arnold's  History  of  Borne. 
*Bee8ly  (A.  H.),  The  Gracchi,  Marius  and  Sulla  ("Epochs"). 

$1.00.     Scribners 1887. 

Bradley  (H.),  TTie  G^o«/is  ("Nations").     $1.25.    Putnams  .     1888. 

*BuRY  (J.  R.),   The  Boman  Empire  to  180  a.d.  ("Students"). 

$1.50 1893. 

Fills  the  gap  between  Mommsen  and  Gibbon  better  than  any 

other  single  volume. 

The  Later  Boman  Empire.     2  vols.     $6.00.     Macmillan        .     1889. 

*Capes  (W.  W.),  Early  Boman  Empire  ("Epochs").     $1.00. 

Scribners 1886. 


538  APPENDIX. 

*  Capes  (W.  W.),  Age  of  the  Antonines  ("Epochs").     $1.00. 

Scribners 1887. 

These    two  works  of  Capes  also  fill  the  interval  between 

Moramsen  and  Gibbon. 
Carr,  The  Church  and  the  Umpire.     $1.00.     Longmans       .        .     1887. 
Church  (A.  J.),  Boman  Life  in  the  Days  of  Cicero.    $1.00.    Mac- 

millan 1883. 

*  Church  (R.  W.),  Beginning  of  the  Middle  Ages  ("Epochs"). 

$.60.     Longmans 1894. 

CuRTEis  (A.  M.),  The  Boman  Empire  from  Theodosius  to  Charle- 
magne.    $1.00.     London 1875. 

Davidson  (Strachan-),   Cicero  ("Heroes").     $1.50.     Putnams  1891. 

Fishkr{G.  v.),  History  ofthe  Christian  Church.    $3.00.    Scribners  1888. 

*  Fowler  (Warde-),  Caesar  ("Heroes").  $1.50.  Putnams  .  1891. 
Gardner,  J?(?iaw  ("  Heroes ").  $1.50.  Putnams  .  .  .  1896. 
GiBBOT!(  (E.),  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Boman  Empire   .        .        .  1845. 

Edited  by  Milman.     6  vols.     $3.00.     Scribners.     Edited  by 
Bury  (1894-1899).    7  vols.     $14.00. 
Granrud    (J.    E.),     Boman     Constitutional    History.      $1.25. 

Allyn  &   Bacon 1902. 

*  How  AND  Leigh,  History  of  Borne  to  the  Death  of  Caesar.    $2.00. 

Longmans 1896. 

Probably  the  best  single  volume. 
Ihne  (Wilhelm),  History  of  Bome.  5  vols.  $18.75.  Longmans.  1868-1890. 
*Ihne  (Wilhelm),  ^aWyiJojwe  ("Epochs").  $1.00.   Scribners.     1886. 
Inge    (W.   R.),    Society  in  Bome  under  the   Caesars.      $1.25. 

Scribners .     1888. 

KiNGSLEY* (Charles),  The  Hermits.  $1.25.  Macmillan  1868  and  1880. 
Lanciani,  Buins  and  Excavations  of  Ancient  Bome.      $4.00. 

Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co 1898. 

Merivale  (C),   Triumvirates  ("Epochs").     $1.00.      Scribners    1887. 
MoMMSEN  (Theodor),  jERsior!/ o/^ome.    5  vols.    $10.00.     Scrib- 
ners           1868-1885. 

Morris,  JZanm'ftaZ  ("Heroes").    $1.50.     Putnams      .         .         .    1897. 
*VE,hHAM  (^U.F.),  Outlines  of  Boman  Histoi'y.    $1.75.    Putnams    1893. 
A  single  volume  covering  the  whole  period  to  476  a.d.,  by  a 

great  scholar  and  teacher. 
Pellison,  Boman  Life  in  Pliny''s  Time.    $1.50.   Flood  &  Vincent, 

Meadville,  Pa 1887. 

Preston  and  Dodge,  Private  Life  of  the  Bomans.  $1.25.    Leach, 

Boston 1893. 

Smith  (R.  B.),  i^ome  ami  CarfAaflre  ("Epochs").  $1.00.  Scribners    1897. 


A  CLASSIFIED  BIBLIOGRAPHY. 


539 


Tig  HE    (Ambrose),    Development    of  the    Boman    Constitution 

("Primers").     $.35.    American  Book  Co.        .        .         .     1886. 

Ulhorn  (G.),  Conflict  of  Christianity  with  Heathenism.     $2.50. 

Scribners 1880. 

Group  II. 

Alcroft  and  Masom,  Tutorial  History  of  Borne.    $1.50.    Cam- 
bridge    1893, 

Alzog,  Church  Histoi-y.  3  vols.  $10.50.  Robert  Clark  &  Co.  1880 
Arnold  (W.   T.),   Boman  Provincial  Administration.      $1.50. 

Macmillan 1879 

BoissiER,  i?ome  an(Z  Pompeu.     $2.50.     Putnams  .         .        .     1890 

Church  (A.  J.),  Oarf/irtgre  ("Nations").  $1.25.  Putnams  .  1887 
Cruttwe LL  (C.  T.),  i?oman  iiYera^wre.  $2.50.  Scribners.  .  1890, 
C\5Tis  iJEi.  Jj.^,  Constantine  the  Great.  $1.00.  London  .  .  1881 
Dill,  Boman  Society  in  the  Fifth  Century.  $2.50.  Macmillan  1899, 
Dodge,  Hannibal  ("  Captains  ").    $5.00.    Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.    1893, 

Caesar  ("Captains").     $5.00.     Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.       .     1894, 

Draper,    Intellectual  Development  of  Europe.     2  vols.     $3.00. 

Harpers 1861 

Fisher  (G.  P.),  Beginnings  of  Christianity.  $2.50.  Scribners,  1878, 
Forsyth  (William),  Cicero.  2  vols.  $4.00.  London  .  .  1869, 
Freeman  (E.  A.),   Chief  Periods  of  European  History.      $3.00. 

Macmillan 1886, 

Froude  (J.  A.),  Caesar,  A  Sketch.     $1.50.     Longmans        .        .     1880, 
Hadley  (J.),  Introduction   to  Boman  Law.     $2.00.     Appleton     1876, 
HoDGKiN  (T.),  Italy  and  Her  Invaders.    7  vols.    $37.50.     Claren- 
don Press      1880-1899, 

Lanciani,  Ancient  Borne  in  the  Light  of  Becent  Discoveries.  $6.00, 

Houghton,  Mifflin  «&  Co 

Lecky,  History  of  European  Morals  from  Augustus  to  Charle 
magne.     2  vols.     $3.00.     Appleton       .... 

Mackail,  Latin  Literature.     $1.25.     Scribners 
MiDDLETON,  Ancient  Borne.     2  vols.     $7.00.     Macmillan 
Milman,  History  of  Latin  Christianity.     9  vols.    $9.00.     London 
Newman  (J.  H.),   The  Arians  of  the   Fourth    Century.     $1,50, 
Longmans     ......... 

Ramsay,  The  Church  and  the  Empire,  to  170  ad.     $3.00.     Put- 
nams      1893 

'Res xyi  (E.),  Influence  of  Bome  on  Christi a Jiity.  $1.50.  Scribners  1888 
ScHXTF,  History  of  the  Christian  Church.    7  vols.    $24.00.    Scrib 

ners 1891. 


1889, 


1877 
1896 
1888, 
1883 

1888 


540  APPENDIX. 

Seelet  (J.  R.),  Boman  Imperialism.     $1.00.     Roberts  Bros.       .  1871. 

Sheldon,  The  Early  Church.     .$2.00.    Crowell,  New  York  .         .  1894. 

SuEPPARD  {J.  G.),  The  Fall  of  Borne.     $2.50.    Macmillan    .        .  1861. 

Shuckburgh,  History  of  Borne.     $2.00.     Macmillan     .        .         .  1894. 

^uiTPL  (Goiunwi^).,  Lectures  and  Essays.     $2.00.     Macmillan       .  1881. 
Stanley   (Arthur),  Lectures  on  the  Eastern   Church.    $1.50. 

Murray 1884. 

Thomas  (E.),  Roman  Life  under  the  Caesars.     $1.75.    Putnams  1899. 

WxTSOTn^  Marcus  Aurelius  Antoninus.     $1.50.     New  York  .        .  1884. 


THE   TEUTONIC   PERIOD  TO  800   A.D.    (See  Part  VI.) 

From  the  lists  above:  Freeman,  Historical  Geography;  Story  of 
Sicily;  Comparative  Politics ;  Historical  Essays  ;  Chief  Periods.  Wilson, 
The  State.  Adams,  Civilization  during  the  Middle  Ages.  Bradley,  Goths. 
Bury,  Later  Boman  Empire.  Church,  Middle  Ages.  Curteis,  Boman 
Empire.  Gibbon,  Hodgkin,  Pennsylvania  Beprints,  Tacitus,  Marcelli- 
anus,  Alzog,  Dill,  Draper,  Lecky,  Milman,  Schaff,  Sheppard. 

Group  I. 
Sources. 

♦EiNHARD  [Eginhard],  X(/e  o/  CAarZewia^ne.     $0.15.     Harper's 

Half-Hour  Series. 
•Henderson  (E.  F.),  Historical  Documents  of  the  Middle  Ages, 

$1.50.    London 1892. 

*  JojuES,  Source  Extracts  for  Medieval  Civilization.    $0.50.    Ains- 

worth 1899. 

Also,  from  the  list  above:   Tacitus,  Marcellianus,  and  the 

Pennsylvania  Beprints. 

Modern  Accounts. 

*Brtce  (James),  The  Holy  Boman  Empire.    $1.50.     Macmillan     1866. 
CuTTs  (E.  L.),  Charlemagne.    $0.60.    Society  for  the  Propagation 

of  Christian  Knowledge 1887 


Davis,  CAarZema^ne  ("Heroes").     $1.50.     Putnams. 
*Emerton,  Introduction  to  the  Middle  Ages.     $1.12.     Ginn 
*  Hodgkin  (T.),  T/ieocZonc  ("Heroes").     $1.50.     Putnams 
*Roi>QKis  (T.),  Charles  the  Great.    $0.70.    Macmillan 


1899 
1888 
1896 
1897 


A  CLASSIFIED   BIBLIOGRAPHY.  541 

KiNGSLEY  (Charles),  Roman  and  Teuton.     $L00.     Macmillan, 

1864  and  1889. 

Sergeant,  TTie  i^ranArs  C Nations").     $1.50.     Putnams     .        .  1896. 

Group  II. 

Maitland  (S.  R.)i  Th^  Dark  Ages.     $1.50.     Rivington        .        .*  1844. 

MoMBERT,  Charles  the  Great.     i$5.00.     Appleton  ....  1888. 

MuiR  (William),  r^e  Co?'aw.    $0,60.    Society  for  the  Propagation 

of  Christian  Knowledge 1878. 

McLLiNGER  (J.  B.),  Schools  of  CharUs  the  Great.  $2.00.  Long- 
mans       1877. 

Oman,  ^?/2aM«i?ie  £'mpiVe  ("Nations").     Putnams.     $1.25.         .  1892. 

Oman,  European  History,  476-918.     $1.75.     Macmillan        .         .  1896. 

W^\.i.^  (C.'L.),  Age  of  Charlemagne.     $2.00.    New  York    .        .  1898. 

West  (A.  F.),  Alcuin.     $1.00.     Scribners 1890. 


FICTION. 
Prehistoric  Life. 
Waterloo  (Stanley),  Story  of  Ah. 

Egypt. 

Ebers  (G.),  The  Daughter  of  an  Egyptian  King.     Sixth  century  b.c. 
The  Sisters.     Second  century  b.c.   • 

Chreece. 

Church  (A.  J.),  Callias.    A  story  of  the  Peloponnesian  War. 
Landor  (Walter  S.),  Pericles  and  Aspasia. 

Rome. 

Becker  (A.  W.),  Gallus.  Fii-st  century  b.c. 
Bulwer-Lytton,  The  Last  Days  of  Pompeii. 
Church  (A.  J.),  The  Hammer.     Second  century  b.c. 

The  Burning  of  Rome.    Times  of  Nero. 

To  the  Lions.     Second  century  a.d. 

The  Count  of  the  Saxon  Shore.     Fifth  century  a.d. 

Dahn,  Felicitas.     A  story  of  the  barbarian  invasions. 


542  APPENDIX. 

Farrar  (F.  W.),  Darkness  and  Dawn.     Times  of  Nero. 

James  (G.  P.  R.),  Attila. 

KiNGSLEY  (Charles),  Hypatia.     Fourth  century  a.d. 

Newman  (J.  H.),  Gallista.     A  story  of  the  persecutions. 

Pater  (Walter),  Marius  the  Epicurean.     Times  of  the  Antonines. 

Wallace,  Ben  Hur.     Time  of  Christ. 

Ware-(W.),  Zenobia, 

Julian. 

Aurelian. 


INDEX 


The  references  are  to  sections,  not  to  pages. 

Pronunciation,  except  for  the  more  familiar  names  and  terms,  is  indicated 
by  division  into  syllables  and  accentuation.  In  a  few  cases,  common  diacrit- 
ical marks  are  used.    The  French  n  is  represented  by  n. 

The  index  may  be  utilized  for  reviews  upon  "cross-topics,"  or  topics  that 
call  for  an  arrangement  different  from  that  of  the  text.  The  more  important 
subjects  for  such  review  are  indicated  in  black  italic. 


Aach'en,  636,  note. 

Abraham,  40,  51,  60,  621. 

Absolute  monarchy,  Oriental,  22,  47; 
Greek  tyrants,  107,  109 ;  early 
Roman,  292,  299,  300;  new  mon- 
archy of  Caesar,  439,  444 ;  medicine 
of,  renewed  by  Diocletian,  521,  525 ; 
nature  of,  as  a  political  system, 
526,  527 ;  its  virtue  exhausted,  553 ; 
inherent  weakness,  553;  Teutonic, 
610;  Mohammedan,  622. 

Abyssinia,  12. 

Ac-ar-na'ni-a,  184,  261. 

Ac-ca'di-ans,  43,  44,  45. 

A-chae'a,  geographical  division  of 
Greece,  186;  name  of  all  Greece  as 
a  Roman  province,  389. 

Achaean  League,  origin  and  early 
growth,  260-263 ;  constitution,  264 ; 
expansion  beyond  Achaea,  265; 
leading  generals,  265;  conflict 
with  Sparta,  266;  calls  in  Mace- 
donia, 267 ;  final  decline,  268,  389.. 

Achaeans,  a  Greek  "  race,"  99;  dis- 
possessed by  Dorians,  101. 

A-chae'us,  fabled  ancestor  of  the 
Achaeans,  100. 

A-chirie§,  90,  143,  238. 

A-crop'o-lis,  the  central  hill-fort 
about  which  grew  a  Greek  city,  93, 
276;  Italian,  276. 


Acropolis  of  Athens,  124, 171,  202. 

Ac'ti-um,  battle  of,  455,  456. 

A-dri-an-o'ple,  battle  of,  518,  562. 

Adriatic  sea,  dividing  Greek  and 
Latin  civilizations  within  the 
Roman  Empire,  391, 491, 492 ;  divid- 
ing Greek  and  Latin  empires,  580 ; 
dividing  Greek  and  Latin  Christi- 
anity, 628. 

Ae'dile,  344,  346. 

Ae-gi'na,  156,  171,  173,  186. 

Ae-gos-pofa-mi,  battle  of,  216. 

Ae-mil-i-a'nus,  Roman  emperor,  461 ; 
see  Sciplo. 

Ae-o'li-ans,  a  Greek  **  race,"  99;  col- 
onies, 104. 

Ae'o-lus,  fabled  ancestor  of  the  Aeo- 
lians,  100. 

Ae'qui-ans,  274,  328. 

Aes'chy-lus,  147,  172,  204. 

A-e'ti-us,  Roman  general,  570^72. 

Ae-toli-an  League,  262,  267,  383. 

Africa,  province  of,  382,  567,  582. 

Ag'-a-mem'non,  king  of  Mycenae,  86. 

A-gath'o-cles,  217. 

A-gres-i-la'us,  king  of  Sparta,  222. 

A'gis,  reforming  king  of  Sparta,  266. 

Agrarian  laws,  Solon's,  126 ;  Spurius 
Cassius',  319;  Licinius',  326;  the 
Gracchi's,  409-412,  415;  Julius 
447. 


648 


544 


A-gric'o-la,  Roman  general,  459. 

A-grip'pa,  minister  of  Augustus,  487. 

Al'ar-ic,  503,  564. 

Al'ba  Lon'ga,  276,  333. 

Al-cae'us,  141. 

Al-ci-bi'a-des,  214. 

Alc'man,  141. 

Alcuin  (Al'kwin),  647. 

Al-e-man'ni,  a  Teutonic  people,  511, 
555,  587. 

Alexander  the  Great,  3,  20,  45,  59, 
69;  youth,  238;  accession  and  res- 
toration of  order,  239;  invades 
Asia  as  champion  of  Hellas,  239, 
240;  Persian  campaigns,  240 ;  in  the 
Far  East,  241;  constructive  work, 
expanding  views,  result,  242-245; 
compared  with  Caesar,  450. 

Alexandria,  name  of  many  Greek 
cities  in  Asia  after  Alexander,  243. 

Alexandria  in  Egypt,  founded,  240, 
243 ;  glory  of,  251,  254 ;  patriarchate, 
533, 627 ;  conquest  by  Saracens,  629. 

Alexandrian  Ag-e,  the,  254. 

Alexandrian  library,  the,  founded, 
258 ;  burned  by  monks,  541 ;  by 
Mohammedans  (?),  ib. 

Alexandrian  Museum,  258. 

Al'li-a,  battle  of  the,  330. 

"Allies,"  the  Italian,  of  Rome,  341, 
342,  343. 

Alphabet,  germs  of,  in  Egyptian 
hieroglyphics,  25;  Phoenician,  58; 
Greek,  98;  Cretan,  87,  note  2; 
Gothic,  538,  556. 

Alpine  race,  the,  8,  9,  274. 

Am-i-a'-nus,  537. 

Am-phic'ty-on'ic  Council,  the,  100. 

Amphictionies,  Greek,  100, 104, 181 ; 
Latin,  333,  note. 

A-nab'a-sis,  206. 

An-ac're-on,  131,  141. 

An-ax-ag'o-ras,  207. 

An-ax-i-man'der,  141. 

An-ax-im'I-nes,  142. 

Ancestor  worship,  in  Egypt,  27,33; 
Chaldea,  49;  Greece,  87.  91. 

Ancient  history,  definition  and  char- 
acter, 4. 

An'cus  Mar'ti-us,  king  of  Rome,  278. 

Angles,  591. 


INDEX. 

A'ni-o,  the  river,  314.  ^       ^ 

Annals,  early  Roman,  277  ;  olWacitus, 
492. 

An-tal'ci-das,  Peace  of,  226.  • 

An-tig'6-nids,  rulers  of  the  house  of 
Autigonus,  regent  of  Macedonia. 
386. 

An-tig'6-nus,  246. 

An'ti-och,  254,  511,  633,  627,  629. 

An-ti'6-chus,  king  of  Syria,  384,  385. 

An-to-ni'nus,  Marcusa^urelius,  459, 
460, 478, 492, 41^,  503, 507, 509, 511 ,  513. 

Antoninus  Pius,  459,  460,  478. 

An-to'-ni-us,  Marcus  (Mark  An- 
thony), 451-455. 

A-pel'les,  Greek  painter,  256. 

Aph'ro-di'te,  100. 

A-p61'lo,  100,  132;  Belvidere,  248. 

A'quae  Sex'ti-ae,  battle  of,  421. 

A-qui-taine',  subdivision  of  Prankish 
state,  616,  618,  619,  625. 

Arabia,  12,  620,  622,  626.  See  Mo- 
hammed. 

"Arabic"  notation,  2,  note;  626, 
note. 

A-ra'tus,  general  of  Achaean  League, 
265,  266,  267. 

Arcadia,  231. 

Ar-ca'di-us,  Roman  emperor,  519, 
563,  573,  643. 

Ar-chil'o-chus,  141. 

Ar-chi-me'des,  259. 

Architecture,  in  Egypt,  24;  in  Chal- 
dea and  Assyria,  48;  in  Greece 
(Athens),  202;  in  Rome,  485-488; 
early  Christian,  488. 

Archon,  at  Athens,  117,  138;  king- 
archon,  107,  117. 

Ar' e-op'a-gus.  Council  of,  118,  127. 
138,  195. 

A'res,  100,  288. 

Ar'gi-nu'sae,  battle  of,  214. 

Argives,  see  Argos. 

Argos,  persistence  of  kingship,  107; 
Pheidon  tyrant,  109;  hostile  to 
Sparta,  110;  crippled  by  Sparta, 
156 ;  friendly  to  Persia,  167 ;  allied 
to  Athens  against  Sparta,  185;  joins 
Corinthian  League  against  Sparta, 
223;  joins  Achaean  League,  265; 
sacked  by  Goths,  511,  563. 


INDEX. 


545 


Ar'i-an-ism,  535,  538,  628, 

A-ri'on,  141. 

Ar-i-o-vis'tus,  a  German  king,  437. 

Ar-is-tarch'us,  259. 

Ar-is-tei'des,  Athenian  leader,  165, 
171,  181.  '" 

Ar'is-toph'a-neg,  182,  204. 

Aristotle,  quoted  on  Athenian  his- 
tory, 119,  122,  125,  126,  127,  131, 
133,  197 ;  place  in  philosophy,  207 ; 
tutor  of  Alexander,  238;  Natural 
History,  244;  proofs  of  sphericity 
of  earth,  259. 

A'ri-us,  teacher  of  the  Arian  Heresy, 
535. 

Armenia,  69,  247,  434,  474. 

Arminius,  Roman  name  for  Her- 
mann, which  see. 

Army,  Egyptian,  22;  early  Greek 
(Achaean)  and  Dorian  (hoplite), 
113,  121 ;  citizen  armies,  hased  on 
wealth,  at  Athens,  122;  at  Rome, 
295;  Theban  phalanx,  230;  Mace- 
donian, 235;  Carthaginian  mercen- 
aries, 357 ;  see  Roman  army. 

Ar'ri-an,  233,  492. 

Art,  Egyptian,  24;  Chaldean  and  As- 
syrian, 48;  early  Greek,  140;  in 
Age  of  Pericles,  201-203;  in  Alex- 
andrian Age,  256. 

Ar-tax-erx'es,  king  of  Persia,  222, 
226. 

Ar-te-mis'i-um,  battle  of,  170. 

Ar'te-mis,  100. 

Aryan  race  and  language,  6,  note,  68. 

Asiatic  plague,  213,  513. 

As-pa'si-a,  210. 

Assemblies,  Homeric  folkmoot,  97; 
Athenian,  Spartan,  Roman,  Teu- 
tonic, see  each;  in  Britain  after 
Teutonic  conquest,  612, 614 ;  Prank- 
ish Mayfield,  612,  645. 

As'sur-Nat'sir-Pal,  53. 

Assyria,  geography,  39 ;  political  his- 
tory, 41 ;  writing,  44;  literature  and 
science,  45,  46;  society,  47;  art,  48; 
religion  and  morals,  49,  50,  53,  54 ; 
contribution  to  government  (sa- 
traps) ,  74 ;  a  Roman  province,  474. 

As-tar'te,  59,  357. 

At'aulf,  Gothic  king,  564. 


Ath-a-na'si-us,  535. 

A-the'ne,  100,  288! 

Athenian  Assembly,  under  Eupatrid 
rule,  118;  constitution  of  classes, 
122;  after  Solon,  127,  129;  after 
Cleisthenes,  135-137;  of  Pericles, 
194.     See  Assembly. 

Athenian  colonization,  see  Cle- 
ruchs. 

Athenian  dicasteries,  196 ;  payment 
of,  197. 

Athenian  ' '  generals  ' '  (strategi) , 
138,   193. 

Athenian  ' '  Leaders  of  the  peo- 
ple "   (demagofjues),  193. 

Athenian  political  capacity,  198. 

Athenian  senate,  after  Solon,  127; 
after  Cleisthenes,  137, 138, 194.  See 
Areopagus. 

Athenian  state-pay,  197. 

Athens,  legendary  founding,  93;  type 
of  Ionic  cities,  9i);  relation  to  At- 
tica, 114 ;  how  far  a  type  of  Greek 
cities,  116 ;  decline  of  Homeric  king- 
ship in,  117;  rise  of  archons,  117; 
Eupatrid  political  oppression,  118; 
economic  oppression,  119;  rise  of 
the  hoplites,  121;  constitution  of 
classes,  122;  Draco,  124;  Solon's 
reforms,  125-129;  Peisistratus,  131, 
132;  Cleisthenes'  reforms,  133-139; 
part  in  Ionian  revolt,  158;  Persian 
heralds,  160;  Marathon,  161,  162; 
a  naval  power,  165 ;  second  Persian 
invasion,  167;  at  battle  of  Artemi- 
sium,  170;  abandoned  to  Persians, 
171;  battle  of  Salamis,  172,  173; 
receives  offers  from  Persians,  174; 
second  destruction  of  the  city,  174 ; 
part  at  Plataea,  175;  building  of 
walls,  177 ;  glory  from  Persian  War, 
179;  assumes  leadership  of  Asiatic 
Greeks,  179,  180;  at  Mycale,  180; 
confederacy  of  Delos,  180,  181 ;  ex- 
pels Persians  from  Aegean,  182, 
183 ;  reduces  rebellious  members  of 
League  to  position  of  subjects,  183; 
Athenian  Empire,  183,  184;  aids 
Sparta  against  Helots,  185 ;  re- 
nounces alliance  with  Sparta,  185; 
marvelous  activity,  185;  land  em- 


646 


INDEX. 


pire,  186 ;  loss,  187  ;  truce  with 
Sparta,  188  ;  peace  with  Persia, 
188;  power,  189;  population,  190; 
cleruchs,  190;  revenues,  191;  con- 
stitution of  Pericles,  192-199;  gov- 
ernment of  the  Empire,  199;  intel- 
lectual and  artistic  Athens,  201- 
210;  Peloponnesian  War,  211-216; 
resources,  213;  the  plague,  213; 
rule  of  the  Four  Hundred,  215; 
siege  and  surrender,  216  ;  rule  of 
The  Thirty,  220;  democratic  res- 
toration, 220 ;  Corinthian  War 
against  Sparta,  223-225 ;  Long 
Walls  rebuilt,  225;  attempted  sur- 
prise by  Sparta,  227 ;  new  Athenian 
confederacy,  229;  shelters  Theban 
exiles,  229;  joins  Sparta  against 
Thebes,  231;  contest  with  Philip 
II.,  234;  defeat  at  Chaeronea,  236; 
philosophic  center  in  Alexandrian 
Age,  254;  freed  from  Macedonian 
garrison  by  Aratus,  265;  refuses  to 
join  Achaean  League,  265,  note; 
sacked  by  Goths,  511,  563. 

A'thos,  Mount,  161 ;  canal,  166. 

At'tal-ids,  rulers  of  the  house  of 
Attains,  king  of  Pergamum,  253. 

At'ti-ca,  93,  99, 101, 190. 

Attic  comedy,  204. 

At'til-a,  570,  571,  572. 

Augurs  (Roman),  290,  291,  327. 

Au-gus'tine  (Saint),  538;  condemns 
pagan  learning,  540. 

Au-gU8'tus  (Octavius,  Octavianus), 
451  ;  forms  Second  Triumvirate, 
452;  overthrows  Brutus  and  Cas- 
sius  at  Philippi,  452;  overthrows 
Anthony  at  Actium,  455 ;  establishes 
the  Empire,  456 ;  events  of  rule,  458 ; 
imperial  constitution,  republican 
forms,  462,  463 ;  extends  territory, 
471,472;  building,  486;  Augustan 
Age  in  literature,  491;  a  title  of 
future  emperors,  521. 

Au'rar-maz'da  (A-hu'ra  Maz'da), 
Persian  god,  72. 

Au-re'li-an,  Roman  emperor, 461, 511, 
515. 

Aus-tra'si-a,  division  of  Frankish 
state.  616,  618. 


A-vars,  569. 

Av'en-tine,  one  of  Rome's  Seven 
Hills,  280,  319. 

BS'al,  59,  357. 

Babylon  (see  also  Chaldea) ,  capital, 
40;  conquered  by  Assyria,  41;  re- 
volt, 42 ;  new  Babylonian  Empire, 
42;  Persian  capture,  42,  69 ;  indus- 
try, 43;  writing  and  libraries,  44, 
45;  Hanging  Gardens,  48 ;  influence 
on  Persia,  71;  Alexander's  con- 
quest, 240 ;  Alexander  dies  at,  241. 

Bac'tri-a,  241. 

Baer'sark,  557. 

Bagdad,  625. 

Barbarian  invasions,  Scythian,  41, 
72;  Celtic  (Gauls),  248,  mO;  Teu- 
tonic attacks  on  Roman  world, 
first  century  B.C.,  421,  437;  re- 
newed, third  century  A.D.,  459, 511; 
successful  in  fourth  century,  563  ff. ; 
not  stronger  than  those  repulsed 
by  Marius  and  Caesar,  543,  596. 

Bar'ca,  see  Hamilcar. 

Barrack  Emperors,  the,  461,  512. 

Ba-sil'i-ca,  488. 

Bavaria,  added  to  Frankish  state  by 
sons  of  Clovis,  589;  independent 
after  Dagobert,  618;  reconquered 
by  Martel,  619;  incorporated  in 
kingdom  of  Charlemagne,  638,  639. 

Bel-i-sa'ri-us,  563,  567,  582. 

Benedict,  Saint,  rules  of,  603. 

Ben-e-dic'tines,  603;  see  Monasti- 
cism. 

Ben-e-ven'tum,  battle  of,  335. 

Be'o-wulf,  Song  of,  557. 

Berber,  8,  21,  357. 

Berlin  Papyrus,  the,  22,  30,  32. 

Bishop,  533;  civil  authority,  630;  of 
Rome,  see  Papacy. 

Bi-thyn'i-a,  Roman  province,  466. 

Bo-a-di-ce'a,  476. 

Boe-o'ti-a,  141,  187. 

Boeotian  League,  226,  261. 

Bohemia,  tributary  state  of  Charle- 
magne, (>40. 

Book  of  the  Dead  (Egyptian),  29, 
33. 

Bren'nus,  Gallic  chieftain.  330. 


INDEX. 


647 


Britain,  Phoenician  trade,  57;  Cae- 
sar's Invasion,  437 ;  conquest  begun 
by  Claudius,  458,  473;  completed 
by  Agricola,  459;  extent  of  Roman 
power  in,  473;  Hadrian's  Wall,  459, 
475 ;  diocese  of,  521 ;  Teutonic  eon- 
quest,  591 ;  slow  and  thorough  oc- 
cupation, 592;  result,  a  Teutonic 
state,  593 ;  conversion  of  Teutonic 
states  to  Christianity,  594;  political 
results,  594. 

Brutus,  Lucius  Junius,  350;  Marcus, 
449,  454. 

Bud'dha,  2,  note. 

Bureaucracy,  in  Egypt,  22  ;  in 
Roman  Empire,  521,  523,  525  ; 
nature  of,  526,  527. 

Burgundians,  a  Teutonic  people,  551 
(see  Teutons) ;  converted  to  Arian 
Christianity,  558;  settle  in  Gaul, 
565,  566;  first  Teutonic  written 
code,  566 ;  reverence  for  Rome,  566 ; 
joins  Rome  against  Huns,  570 ;  at- 
tacked by  Clovis,  589 ;  numbers,  596. 

Burgundy,  a  subdivision  of  the 
Frankish  state,  616. 

By-zan'tine  Empire,  see  Roman 
Empire  of  the  East. 

By-zan'ti-um,  516. 

Caesar,  a  title  of  the  Roman  em- 
peror, 463 ;  survival  in  modern  im- 
perial titles,  463,  note ;  an  assistant 
of  the  emperor,  520. 

Caesar,  Caius  Julius,  studied  oratory 
at  Rhodes,  254;  in  hiding  from 
Sulla,  428;  rise  in  Pompey's  ab- 
sence, 435;  character  and  aims,  435; 
First  Triumvirate,  436;  in  Gaul, 
437;  the  hope  of  the  subject  na- 
tionalities, 440  ;  Civil  War,  438- 
444;  master  of  the  world,  444;  pol- 
icy of  reconciliation,  445;  power 
and  titles,  446 ;  general  reform,  447 ; 
provinces  under,  448 ;  murder,  449 ; 
place  in  history,  450  ;  compared 
with  Alexander  and  Napoleon,  450 ; 
in  Roman  literature,  490. 

Calendar,  the,  Egyptian,  26;  Chal- 
dean, 45;  Roman,  reformed  by 
Caesar,  447,  and  note. 


Cal-ig-'u-la  (Caius  Caesar,  grandson 
of  Augustus) ,  458. 

Caliphs,  621,  note. 

Cal'li-as,  Peace  of,  188. 

Cal-lic'ra-tes,  202. 

Cal-li'nus,  141. 

Ca-mil'lus,  328,  note. 

Cam-pa'ni-a,  Etruscans  in,  274 ;  Sam- 
nites  recover,  274,  332 ;  attacked  by 
hill  Samnites,  332 ;  Rome  called  in, 
332  ;  Campanian  mercenaries  in 
Sicily,  359. 

Cam'pus  Mar'ti-us,  487. 

Ca'naan-ites,  12. 

Can'nae,  battle  of,  367. 

Cap-pa-do'ci-ans,  76. 

Capua,  joins  Hannibal,  367 ;  besieged 
by  Rome,  372;  destroyed,  377;  re- 
founded  by  Caesar,  447. 

Car-a-cal'la,  Roman  emperor,  461, 
480. 

Ca'ri-ans,  the,  76,  84,  182. 

Car-6-lin'gi-an  dynasty,  descended 
from  Charles  Martel,  633. 

Car'thag-e,  Phoenician  colony,  58; 
attacks  Greeks  in  Sicily,  155,  167; 
defeated  at  Himera,  174;  signifi- 
cance of  repulse,  176;  held  in  check 
by  Athenian  name,  189;  renews 
attempts  on  Sicily,  217 ;  one  of  five 
great  powers,  356 ;  the  rival  of  Rome 
in  the  West,  356 ;  character  of  civil- 
ization, 358,  359;  First  Punic  War 
—  loss  of  Sicily,  361,  362;  Merce- 
nary War  —  loss  of  Sardinia  and 
Corsica,  363;  Second  Punic  War  — 
loss  of  Spain  and  much  of  Africa, 
365-374 ;  destruction  after  Third 
Punic  War,  379-382;  attempt  of 
Gracchus  to  refound,  415,  417;  re- 
founded  by  Caesar,  447 ;  capital  of 
Vandal  kingdom,  567. 

Carthage,  Council  of,  condemns 
pagan  learning,  540. 

Cas'si-us,  Caius,  the  conspirator 
against  Caesar,  449,  454 ;  Spurius. 
319,  328,  note,  411. 

Caste,  none  in  Egypt,  22;  approach 
to,  in  Roman  Empire,  550. 

Catiline,  conspiracy,  435. 

Cato,  the  Censor,  urges  destruction 


548 


INDEX. 


of  Carthage,  379;  on  Roman  sla- 
very, 405 ;  attempts  at  reform,  407; 
literary  works,  489. 

Cato  the  Younger,  character  and 
political  ideal,  435;  defeat  at  Thap- 
sus,  444 ;  death  at  Utica,  444,  note. 

Ca-tul'lus,  490. 

Cau'dine  Porks,  battle  of,  334. 

Ce 'crops,  93,  503. 

Celts,  H,  248,  262,  569 ;  see  Gauls. 

Censor  (Roman),  325,  327,  344,  346. 

Centuries,  Roman  army  of,  295 ;  As- 
sembly, see  Roman  Assemblies. 

Ce'os,  141. 

Cer-a-mi'cus,  202. 

Cer'y-ne'ia,  263. 

£/haer'o-ne'-a,  battle  of,  236. 

-eiialcid'ic  Confederacy,  228. 

-Charcis,  colonies  in  Thrace,  106;  an 
Athenian  cleruchy,  133. 

-Ghal-de'a  (see  Babylon),  early  home 
of  civilization,  12;  geography  and 
fertility,  39 ;  myths,  40 ;  First  Chal- 
dean Empire,  40;  Second  (or  Baby- 
lonian) Empire,  42;  literature  and 
science,  44-46;  calendar,  45;  soci- 
ety, 47;  arts,  48;  religion  and 
morals,  49;  place  in  history,  78. 

Chalons  (sha-lon),  battle  of,  570,  572; 
significance,  570,  625. 

Charlemagne  (sharl-e-man'),  form 
of  name,  636,  note;  condition  of 
Frankish  state  at  accession,  636; 
character  and  place  in  history,  636, 
649;  expands  civilization,  636;  wars 
with  Saxons,  637 ;  other  conquests, 
638;  political  aim,  639,  640;  renews 
the  Roman  Empire  in  the  West,  641, 
642;  organization,  645;  relation  to 
the  Church,  64(>;  schools,  647. 

Charles  Mar-tel',  Mayor  of  the  Pal- 
ace, 619 ;  reasserts  Frankish  author- 
ity over  frontier  provinces,  619; 
repulses  Saracens  at  Tours,  625; 
rules  without  a  king,  633;  refuses 
to  aid  Pope  against  Lombards,  634. 

■€her-so-nese',  164. 

Chiefs,  Council  of,  Homeric,  96,  97; 
origin  of  Spartan  senate.  111,  and 
Athenian  Areopagus,  118 ;  of  Roman 
senate,  292,  294;  Teutonic,  569. 


Chmese,  2  and  note,  79. 

Christianity,  birth  of  Christ,  458;  con- 
trast with  the  higher  pagan  philos- 
ophy, 505 ;  debt  to  Roman  Empire, 
506;  debt  to  Empire  in  political 
organization,  533;  persecution  of, 
507-510,  and  458, 459, 460, 516 ;  num- 
ber of  adherents  and  organization 
in  third  century,  528;  Constantine 
makes  it  a  favored  religion,  516, 
528,  529 ;  persecutions  by,  518,  530 ; 
effect  upon  slavery  and  gladiatorial 
games,  531 ;  reaction  of  paganism 
upon  Christianity,  531 ;  conversion 
of  barbarians  influenced  by  early 
conversion  of  Empire,  532 ;  church 
organization  —  hierarchic  and  mo- 
narchic tendencies,  533 ;  rise  of  here- 
sies, 534 ;  Arian  heresy  and  Nicene 
Council,  535;  attitude  of  Church 
toward  pagan  learning,  539,  540; 
Teutonic  and  Latin  Christianity 
compared,  557;  Arianism  of  Teu- 
tonic invaders  (except  Franks  and 
Saxons) ,  536, 558 ;  Franks  converted 
to  orthodox  Christianity,  588;  ad- 
vantage of  Franks  against  Arian 
rivals,  588,  589 ;  Saxons  in  Britain 
converted,  594 ;  old  Celtic  Church 
in  Britain,  594;  Council  of  Whitby, 
594 ;  nature  of  Chrfstianity  among 
Teutonic  conquerors,  600;  moral 
excellence  even  in  Dark  Ages,  600, 
601 ;  Monasticism  (which  see) ,  602- 
605;  rise  of  Papacy  (which  see), 
627-632;  Latin  and  Greek  Christi- 
anity, 534,  628;  Greek  churches 
lost  in  great  part  to  Mohammedans, 
629;  iconoclastic  quarrel,  629,  631; 
Great  Schism,  629-631.  See  Greek 
Christianity  and  Latin  Christianity. 

■Chry-sos'tom,  Saint,  538. 

Cicero,  435,  450,  490. 

Cilician  pirates,  434. 

Cilicians,  76. 

Cimbri,  invasion  by,  421. 

Ci-min'i-an  Forest,  331. 

Ci'mon,  182, 185. 

Cin'a-don,  221. 

Cin-cin-na'tus,  328,  note. 

Cin'na,  426. 


INDEX. 


549 


Cis-al'pine  Gaul,  271;  joins  Sam- 
nites  against  Rome,  334;  subdued 
up  to  Apennines,  335 ;  again  threat- 
ens Italy;  conquered,  363;  citizen- 
ship conferred  by  Julius  Caesar, 
440 ;  furnishes  Caesar's  army,  440, 
443 ;  incorporated  in  Italy,  448. 

City-state,  the,  of  the  Greeks,  93,  94; 
decline  of,  218. 

Ci-vilis,  476. 

Civilization,  first  homes,  12-13;  ex- 
pansion in  Asia,  68 ;  expansion  un- 
der Persian  rule,  69,  72;  Oriental 
progress  summarized,  78,  79;  Eu- 
ropean type,  80 ;  beginnings  in 
Greece,  why,  82,  83,  84;  Greek  and 
Oriental  relations,  87;  fusion  of 
Greek  and  Oriental,  242-245;  Latin 
and  Greek,  under  Roman  sway, 
contrasted,  391 ;  expansion  of  Latin 
(Caesar) ,  437 ;  expansion  under  Au- 
gustus, and  later,  471-474;  Roman 
and  Teutonic  contributions  to  later 
European,  613-615;  area  extended 
by  Charlemagne,  637  ;  Oriental 
character  of  Mohammedan,  626. 

Clan  (gens,  pi.  gentes),  Greek,  91,  92; 
clan  village,  93;  Roman,  286;  Teu- 
tonic, 559. 

Classical  history,  defined,  3. 

Claud'i-an,  Reman  poet,  on  unity  of 
Roman  world,  481. 

Claudius,  Appius,  the  decemvir,  320, 
321 ;  the  censor,  335,  343, 345 ;  Caius 
Claudius  Nero,  consul,  against  Han- 
nibal, 373;  Tiberius  Claudius,  em- 
peror, 41-54  A.D.,  458,  480;  Marcus 
Aurelius  Claudius  (Claudius  II.), 
461,  511. 

Cla-zom'e-nae,  226. 

Clelsth'e-nes,  132-139. 

Cle-om'e-nes,  reforming  king  of 
Sparta,  266,^267. 

Cle'on,  Athenian  demagogue,  214, 215. 

Cle-o-pa'tra,  20,  444. 

Cler'uchs,  Athenian  colonists,  133, 
190,  199. 

Clo-til'da,  wife  of  Clovis,  588. 

Clo'vis  (Clod'o-wig) ,  527-530, 597, 610, 
note. 

Cni'dus,  battle  of,  224. 


Co'drus.legendary  king  of  Athens,  117. 

Col-i-se'um,  487. 

Col'line  Gate,  battle  of,  427. 

Co-lo'ni,  serfs,  549. 

Colonization,  Greek,  102-106;  Athe- 
nian cleruchies,  133,  190,  199;  Ro- 
man, 336,  415,  417,  418,  447. 

Comitia,  see  Roman  Assembly. 

Comitium,  280. 

Comercium,  338. 

Com-mo'dus,  Roman  emperor,  459. 

Companions,  Teutonic,  560,  611. 

Com-pur-ga'tion,  608. 

Con-fu'ci-us,  2,  note. 

Congress  of  Corinth,  236. 

Con-nu'bi-um,  338. 

Conon,  Athenian  general,  224. 

Con'stan-tine  the  Great,  516,  517, 
520-522,  528-530,  535. 

Constantino  IV.,  624. 

Constantino  VI.,  deposed  by  Irene, 
641 ;  succeeded  in  the  West  by 
Charlemagne,  641,  643. 

Constantinople,  516,  533,  562,  563, 
5()4. 

Con-stan'ti-us,  son  of  Constantine  I., 
517. 

Consular  tribunes,  Roman,  324-326. 

Consuls,  Roman,  established,  300, 
301 ;  imperium,  301 ;  limitations, 
302,  304;  set  aside  for  decemvirs, 
320;  restored,  321;  set  aside  for 
consular  tribunes,  324,  325;  re- 
stored, one  always  to  be  a  ple- 
beian, 326;  a  curule  office,  344, 
346. 

Cor-cy'ra,  106,  167,  184,  211. 

Cordova,  caliphate  of,  625. 

Co-rin'na,  141. 

Corinth,  105,  109,  156,  177,  186,  211, 
223,  265,  267,  389,  477,  511. 

Corinthian  War,  223,  224. 

Co'ri-o-la'nus,  328,  note. 

Cornelia,  mother  of  the  Gracchi,  408, 
418. 

Corsica,  lost  by  Carthage  to  Rome, 
3(>3. 

Cos,  247. 

Cras'sus,  member  of  First  Triumvir- 
ate, 432,  433,  436,  438. 

Cretan  alphabet,  87,  note. 


550 


INDEX. 


Crit'i-as,  one  of  the  Thirty  at  Athens, 
220. 

Croe'sus,  68,  69, 157. 

Cu-nax'a,  battle  of,  222. 

Cu-ne'i-fonn  writing",  44. 

Curia,  the  Roman,  286,  287. 

Curials,  Roman,  547. 

Curiate  Assembly,  see  Roman  As- 
sembly. 

Curio,  lieutenant  of  Caesar,  450. 

Curule  office,  344,  399. 

Cylon,  123, 

Cynics,  the,  257. 

Cy-nos-ceph'a-lae,  battle  of,  384. 

Cyprus,  87,  226,  251. 

Cy-re'ne,  106. 

Cyrus,  the  Great,  69,  75,'  157 ;  the 
Younger,  222. 

Dacia,  461,  474,  511. 

Dag'o-bert,  king  of  the  Franks,  617, 
636. 

Darius  I.,  king  of  Persia,  72,  75,  76, 
161,  166. 

Darius  Codomannus,  king  of  Persia, 
240. 

Dark  Ages,  the,  595. 

David,  king  of  the  Hebrews,  62. 

Dec'arch-ies,  rule  of,  under  Spartan 
protection,  219. 

Decemvirs,  Roman,  320-322. 

De'ci-us,  Roman  emperor,  461,  509. 

Delos,  Confederacy  of,  founded  by 
Aristeides,  provisions,  181 ;  work 
and  growth,  182 ;  becomes  an  Athe- 
nian Empire,  183,  184. 

Delphi,  oracle  at,  100, 118, 132, 167, 171. 

Demes,  Attic,  135,  136. 

De-me'ter,  100. 

De-moc'ri-tus,  207. 

De-mos'the-neg,  234. 

Denmark,  640,  648. 

De-si-de'ri-us,  last  Lombard  king, 
638. 

Despotism,  see  Absolute  Monarchy. 

Dictator,  Roman,  305,  327,  344,  346; 
permanent  office,  Sulla,  428;  Cae- 
sar, 446. 

Diocese,  civil  division  of  Roman 
Empire,  521 ;  table  of,  521 ;  ecclesi- 
astical, 533. 


Di-o-cle'ti-an,  516,  520^23. 

Di-o-do'rus,  491. 

Di-og-'e-nes,  the  Cynic,  257. 

Di-o-nys'i-us,  tyrant  of  Syracuse, 
217 ;  Roman  historian,  277,  491. 

Di-o-ny'sus,  131,  204;  theater  of,  at 
Athens,  205. 

Divination,  Roman  from  Etruscan, 
274,  note. 

Do-mi' ti-an,  reign,  459;  wall  on  the 
Danube,  475. 

"  Donation  of  Constantino,"  635. 

"Donation  of  Pippin,"  634,  635, 
638. 

Do-nothing  kings,  the,  617. 

Do'ri-ans,  a  Greek  race,  98;  oligar- 
chies in  Greek  cities,  156 ;  the  in- 
vasion, 101, 102,  114;  colonies,  104, 
217. 

Dorus,  fabled  ancestor  of  the  Dorians, 
100. 

Dra'co,  124,  128. 

Dru'sus,  tribune,  rival  of  Gracchus, 
417. 

DrusTis  the  Yotmger,  proposal  to 
extend  Roman  citizenship,  423. 

Dy'arch-y,  462. 

Early  Law,  rigidity  of,  277. 

East  Anglia,  591. 

Eastern  Empire,  see  Roman  Empire. 

Ebro,  boundarj^  of  Spanish  mark,  638. 

Ec-ba-ta'na,  240. 

Education,  Greek,  208;  under  the 
Roman  Empire,  483,  484;  decline 
after  the  third  century,  540,  541 ; 
Roman  schools  almost  disappear, 
595;  revival  under  Charlemagne, 
647. 

Egypt,  early  home  of  civilization,  12 ; 
physical  geography,  14, 15 ;  political 
geography,  16;  history,  17-20;  peo- 
ple, 21,  22;  position  of  women,  23; 
industries  and  art,  24;  literature, 
25;  science,  26;  religion,  27;  moral- 
ity, 28-34;  connection  with  Chal- 
dean culture,  37;  conquest  by 
Persia,  69;  place  in  civilization, 
78;  revolt  against  Persia,  186;  wel- 
comes Alexander,  240;  one  of  the 
great  powers  of  the  Graeco-Orien- 


INDEX. 


551 


tal  world,  247;  history  under  the 
Ptolemies,  251 ;  alliance  with  Rome, 
383,  384;  a  diocese  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  521. 

El-a-gab'a-lus,  Roman  emperor,  461. 

Elis,  265. 

Eloy,  Saint,  Bishop,  sermon  on  good 
works,  601. 

Em-ped'o-cles,  207. 

Empire,  term  defined,  641,  note. 

En'ni-us,  489. 

E-pam-i-non'das,  230,  231. 

Ephesus,  104,  140,  141. 

Eph-i-al'tes,  185,  200. 

Ephors,  Spartan,  112,  113. 

Ep-ic-te'tus,  491 ;  extracts  from,  504. 

Epicurus,  257. 

E-pi'rus  (Epeirus),  82,  247,  261. 

Equites,  Roman  order  of,  396,  403, 
414. 

Er-a-tos'the-nes,  keeper  of  Alexan- 
drian library,  259. 

E-rec-the'um,  202. 

E-re'tri-a,  158,  161. 

Essex,  kingdom  of  the  East  Saxons, 
591. 

Ethiopia,  12,  19,  20. 

E-tru'ri-a,  274. 

Etruscans,  84,  274,  328,  330,  331. 

Eu-boe'a,  106,  133,  170, 187,  215. 

Eu'cUd,  259. 

Eu-dox'i-a,  Roman  empress,  572. 

Eu-pa'trids,  at  Athens,  117-124. 

Euphrates,  37,  38,  243,  438,  623. 

Eu-re-me'don,  battle  of  the,  183. 

Eu-rip'i-de§,  204,  243. 

Eu-se'bi-us,  ecclesiastical  history  of, 
538 ;  condemns  pagan  learning,  540. 

Eu-tro'pi-us,  537. 

Exarch  of  Ravenna,  584,  585. 


^ 


Fabius  Pictor,  historian  of  Rome, 

277,  489. 
Fabius,  Quintus  F.  Maximus,  367. 
eudal  system,  in  Egypt,  22 ;  germs 

of  European  system,  560,  611. 
Finns,  511,569,570. 
Flavian  Caesars,  the,  459. 
Franks,    early    invasions,    511  ;    a 

Teutonic  people,  555 ;   early  home, 

668;  settlement  in  northern  Gaul, 


568 ;  resistance  to  Attila,  570 ;  real 
advance  begins,  586 ;  causes  of  pre- 
eminence over  other  Teutonic  con- 
querors, 586;  small  numbers,  596; 
conquest  of  Gaul  and  the  Aldmanni 
by  Clovis,  587 ;  conversion  to  Xptho-  C^ 
dox  Christianity,  588;  importance, 
588, 589 ;  seizure  of  Burgundian  and 
Visigothic  territory,  589 ;  consolida- 
tion of  Frankish  tribes,  589;  sons 
of  Clovis  add  Bavaria  and  Thurin- 
gia  to  the  Frankish  state,  589;  chief 
divisions  of  state,  616;  decline  of 
ingian  line  after  Dagobert, 
617,618;  rise  of  mayors,  618;  new 
Teutonic  conquest  by  the  East 
Franks,  Testry,  618;  reorganiza- 
tion of  the  state,  618 ;  Martel  reas- 
serts authority  over  the  frontier 
dukedoms,  619 ;  repulses  Saracens, 
625 ;  rule  of  Martel ,  sole  mayor,  633 ; 
Karlmann  and  Pippin,  633;  Pippin 
assumes  crown,  with  papal  sanc- 
tion, 633,  634;  extends  authority 
over  north  Italy,  634 :  condition  at 
Charlemagne's  accession,  636;  new 
expansion  of  territory,  637,  638 ;  a 
Teutonic  state,  639;  buffer  states 
against  barbarians  on  the  east,  640 ; 
revival  of  Roman  Empire  in  the 
West,  641.  See  Roman  Empire  of 
the  West. 
Fre'ya,  Teutonic  deity,  558. 

Ga'des  (Cadiz),  68. 

Ga-la'ti-a,  248. 

Galba,  458,  460. 

Galen,  492. 

Gal-li-e'nus,  Roman  emperor,  461. 

Gaul,  condition  before  Caesar,  437; 
Caesar's  conquest,  437  ;  prosperity 
in  third  century,  478;  Teutonic  in- 
vasions, 564;  Visigothic  state  in 
south,  568;  Burgundians  in  south- 
east, 566;  Franks  in  north,  568; 
Roman  authority  in  north,  568 ;  in- 
vasion of  Huns,  570;  Gaul  united 
by  the  Franks,  587-590.  See  Franks. 

Gauls,  invasion  of  Greece,  248,  262; 
in  north  Italy,  274 ;  sack  Rome,  330. 

Gaul,  the  Dying,  248. 


552 


INDEX. 


Gaza,  siege  of,  240. 

Gei'ser-ic,  king  of  the  Vandals,  572. 

Gelon,  155,  167,  217. 

Gens,  see  Clan. 

Ge-nu'ci-us,  319. 

Germans,  see  Teutons. 

Gibraltar,  straits  of,  623. 

Gladiatorial  games,  493,  497. 

Gor-di-a'nus  1.,  II.,  and  III.,  461. 

Gor'gi-as,  207. 

Gosh 'en,  60. 

Goths,  511,  518,  555,  558;  see  Ostro- 
goths and  Visigoths. 

Grac'chus,  Cains,  authority  for  griev- 
ances of  Italy,  400,  note ;  character 
and  aims,  413;  wins  populace  and 
equites,  414;  agrarian  reform,  415; 
colonization,  415;  personal  rule, 
416;  attempt  to  extend  citizen- 
ship, 417;  killed,  417;  work  over- 
thrown, 418. 

Gracchus,  Ti-be'ri-us  Sem-pro'ni-us, 
character  and  aims,  408;  agrarian 
reform,  409-412 ;  attempt  to  extend 
citizenship,  411 ;  murder,  411. 

Graeco-Oriental  World,  the,  merg- 
ing of  East  and  West  by  Alexander, 
242-245;  Wars  of  the  Succession, 
246;  political  situation  in  third 
century  B.C.,  247;  Gallic  invasion, 
248;  decline,  249;  single  states  in 
outline,  250-253;  society,  254 ;  liter- 
ature, 255;  art,  256;  philosophy, 
257;  libraries  and  science,  258, 
259;  absorbed  or  conquered  by 
Rome,  which  see. 

Gra-ni'cus,  battle  of  the,  240. 

Gra'ti-an,  Roman  emperor,  518,  530. 

Greek  Christianity  (see  Christi- 
anity, to  the  Great  Schism) ,  Icono- 
clasm,  629;  position  of  Patriarch, 
629. 

Greek  drama,  131,  141,  204. 

Greek  education,  208. 

Greek  federations'  261  ff, 

Greek  fire,  624. 

Greek  philosophy,  141,  142,  207, 
257. 

Greek  religion,  91, 100, 143. 

Greeks,  3,  6,  13,  19,  46,  68,  69; 
Greece  typical  of  Europe,  80-82; 


physical  geography,  83,  84;  Homer 
and  archaeology,  85, 86 ;  Mycenaean 
and  Achaean  cultures,  87,  88 ;  eco- 
nomic features  of  Heroic  Age,  89, 90 ; 
tribal  organization,  91, 92 ;  the  city-* 
state,  93,  94 ;  early  political  organi-J 
zation,  95-97 ;  from  the  Dorian 
emigration  to  the  Persian  wars, 
98-152;  gap  in  the  evidence  after 
Homer,  98;  "races,"  99;  unity  of 
culture,  100 ;  colonization,  101-106 ; 
from  kings  to  democracies,  107- 
109;  rise  of  Sparta,  110-113;  Athens 
to  500  B.C.,  114-139 ;  intellectual  de- 
velopment to  500  B.C.,  140-151 ;  the 
Persian  wars,  152-175;  significance 
of  Greek  victory,  176;  division  of 
Hellas  into  two  rival  leagues, 
178  ff. ;  Athenian  supremacy,  178- 
210  (see  Athens) ;  Peloponnesian 
War,  211-216 ;  the  Western  Greeks, 
217;  decline  of  the  city-state,  218; 
Spartan  supremacy,  219-230  (see 
Sparta) ;  Theban  supremacy,  231 ; 
subjected  to  Macedon ,  232-236 ;  his- 
tory of  Hellas  merged  in  that  of 
Graeco-Oriental  world,  237  (see 
Alexander  and  Graeco-Oriental 
world) ;  Hellenizing  the  East,  242, 
243;  Greek  cities  in  the  Orient, 
243 ;  federal  period  in  Greece,  260- 
268  (see  Achaean  League) ;  domi- 
nance of  Macedonia,  260;  of  Rome, 
389. 

Gregory  the    Great,    Pope,   628, 
note;  Gregory  II.  and  III.,  631. 

Gun'do-bald,  king  of  the  Burgun- 
dians,  5(56. 

Ha'dri-an,  Roman  emperor,  459,  480, 

509. 
Hadrian,  Pope.  632,  note. 
Hadrian's  'Wall,  459,  476. 
Hal-i-car-nas'sus,  206. 
Hall'statt  culture,  88. 
Halys  River,  68. 
Ha-mil'car  Bar'ca,  366. 
Hannibal,  250,  367,  370-374,  379. 
Ha'roun-al  Ra'schid,  648. 
Has'dru-bal  Barca,  373,  Hasdrubal, 

commander  in  Third  Punic  War,  381. 


INDEX. 


553 


Hebrews,  3,  note,  18,  56,  60-67,  70, 
78. 

He-gi'ra,  the  Mohammedan,  621,  622. 

Helen,  wife  of  Menelaus,  85. 

Hellas,  82,  98,  105,  etc. ;  see  Greeks. 

Hel-le'nes,  82,  100,  105;  see  Greeks. 

Hel'les-pont,  the,  166,  182,  623. 

Helots,  the,  112;  revolt,  185. 

Hel-ve'ti-i,  437. 

He-phaes'tus,  100. 

Hep'tarch-y,  591. 

He'ra,  100,  288. 

Her-a-clei'tus,  142. 

Herat,  243. 

Heresies,  534,  628. 

Hermann,  victor  in  the  Teutoberg 
Forest,  472,  637. 

Her'mes,  100. 

Hermits,  in  the  Eastern  Church,  602. 

Her'ni-cans,  the,  328,  note. 

Herodotus,  quoted,  21,  39,  70,  162; 
place  in  literature,  20(i. 

Her'u-li,  the,  574. 

He'si-od,  91,  141. 

Hestia,  100. 

Hezekiah,  54. 

Hierarchy,  system  of  administra- 
tion, 521,  523,  526. 

Hi'e-ro,  I.,  217;  II.,  359. 

Hieroglyphics,  Egyptian,  25;  Chal- 
dean, 44. 

Him'e-ra,  battle  of,  174. 

Hindoos,  2,  note,  6,  note. 

Hip-par'chus,  son  of  Peisistratus, 
132;   the  scientist,  259. 

Hip'pi-as,'132.  , 

History,  divisions,  4,  note. 

Hit'tites,  13,  20,  41,  56,  62. 

Holy  Roman  Empire,  644. 

Homer,  84-89,  98,  100,  208,  238. 

Ho-no'ri-us,  Roman  emperor,  562, 
573.  579,  643. 

Hop'lite,  rise  to  political  power,  121. 

Horace,  491. 

Horatian  Law,  see  Valerian-Hora- 
tian  Law. 

Hor-ten'si-an  Law,  345. 

Huns.  72,  569,  570. 

Hyk'sos,  18,  37,  60. 

Hy-met'tus,  131. 

Hy-pa'ti-a,  541. 


Hy-per'bo-lus,  215. 
Hy'pha-sis  River,  241. 

I-a-pyg'i-ans,  275. 
I-be'ri-ans,  8,  9. 

Iconoclastic  disputes,  629,  631. 
Ic-ti'nus,  202. 
Iliad,  85,  87,  100. 
lUyrian  pirates,  383. 
Im'bros,  226. 
Im-per-a'tor,  463. 
India,  57,  69,  79,  241,  626. 
Indus  River,  241 ,  243, 244, 247, 438, 623. 
"Inexpiable    War,"    the,  between 
Carthage    and    her    mercenaries, 

ms. 

Inter-rex,  Roman,  294. 

Ionia,  104,  141,  142,  157, 158,  159,  180, 
181,  184. 

lonians,  inhabitants  of  Ionia,  see 
Ionia;   in  Sicily,  217. 

I-o'ni-ans,  a  Greek  "  race,"  99 ;  driven 
out  of  Peloponnesus  by  Dorians, 
104;  colonization  of  Ionia,  104; 
democracy  among,  109. 

I-phic'ra^teg,  225,  235. 

Ip'sus,  battle  of,  246. 

I'ran,  plateau  of,  68,  623. 

Irene,  empress  at  Constantinople,  641. 

Iron,  none  in  Egypt  until  800  B.C.,  24; 
in  Greece,  87 ;  in  the  Hallstatt  cul- 
ture, 88. 

Iroquois  (Ir'o-kwa) ,  a  North  Amer- 
ican Indian  people,  compared  to 
early  Teutons,  556. 

Is'e-as.  2.39. 

Isidore,  Bishop,  635;  "  forged  decre- 
tals," 635. 

Islam,  621. 

I-soc'ra-tes,  161,  207,  219. 

Israel,  Kingdom  of,  41. 

Is'sus,  battle  of,  240. 

Italians,  divisions,  274. 

Italy,  geographical  meaning  in  ancient 
history,  271;  physical  geography 
and  history,  272 ;  contrasted  with 
Greece,  272 ;  peoples,  273,  274 :  unit- 
ed by  Roman  conquest,  .328-335  ;  a 
confederacy  under  Roman  rule,  336- 
343;  economic  and  social  decay 
after  Punic  wars,  396-400  :    wins 


554 


INDEX. 


citizenship,  411,  417,  423-425 ;  Visi- 
goths in,  563;  Huns,  611 ;  province 
of  Greek  Empire  under  Zeuo,  574 ; 
Ostrogothic  kingdom,  576-579;  re- 
conquered for  Greek  Empire,  582 ; 
Lombards  enter,  584 ;  division  be- 
tween Teuton  and  Empire,  and 
break  up  into  petty  states,  585. 

Ja'nus,  Temple  of,  456. 

Jax-ar'teg,  the,  243. 

Jerome,  Saint,  539;  condemns  pagan 
learning,  540. 

Jerusalem,  42,  54,  69,  64,  459,  533, 
()27,'  629. 

Josephus,  491. 

Jo'vi-an,  Roman  emperor,  517. 

Juba,  king  of  Numidia,  444. 

Judah,  kingdom  of,  41. 

Ju-gurth'a,  420. 

Jug-urthine  War,  420. 

Julian  Caesars,  the,  458. 

Ju-li-a'nus,  Roman  emperor,  461. 

Julian  the  Apostate,  517,  537. 

Juno,  100,  288. 

Jupiter,  100,  288. 

Jus-tin'i-an  I.,  Emperor  at  Constan- 
tinople, 582,  583;  Code,  583. 

Jutes,  591 . 

Ju've-nal,  492. 

Ka-di'jah,  wife  of  Mohammed,  621. 

Kan-da-har',  240. 

Karlmann  (Carloman) ,  son  of  Martel, 

(533. 
Kar'nak,  24. 
Kent,  kingdom  of  the  Jutes  in  Britain, 

591. 
Khu-ni-a-to'nu,  Egyptian  king,  31. 
King-ship,  see  Absolute  Monarchy.' 
Koran,  the,  621. 

Lac-e-dae-mo'ni-ans,  see  Sparta. 
La-co'ni-a,  110,  112. 
Lac-tan'ti-us,  514 ;  denies  sphericity 

of  the  earth,  540. 
Land    system,    in   Egypt,    22  ;    in 

Sparta,  112;  in  early  Athens,  119; 

Solon's  reforms,  126 ;  in  early  Rome, 

312 ;  see  Agrarian  Laws ;  under  the 

later  Empire,  649. 


Lang-uage  and  race,  6  and  note. 

La-oc'o-on,  statue  of,  256. 

Latin  Christianity,  see  Christianity, 
to  the  separation  of  Latin  and 
Greek  Churches  ;   see  Papacy. 

Latin  civilization,  contrasted  with 
Greek,  391. 

Latin  colonies,  339,  342,  343,  400. 

Latin  languag-e,  value  of,  in  Middle 
Ages,  613. 

Latin  League,  ancient,  281 ,  333,  note 
Rome  becomes  head,  281 ;  trading 
rights  in,  284,  note;  revolt,  328 
alliance  with  Rome,  328;  Rome  be- 
comes mistress,  329;  rebellion,  331 
subjugation  and  reorganization 
331;  the  revolt  of  338  B.C.,  333 
final  subjection  and  dissolution,  33^, 

Latin  right,  the,  339. 

Latins,  a  division  of  the  Italian  race, 
6,  274. 

Latins,  a  name  applied  to  the  South 
European  people  with  the  Latin 
civilization,  595. 

La'tium,  270. 

Law,  rigidity  of  early>  277;  English 
common,  6lij  see  Roman  Law  and 
Teutonic  La-w.^ 

Lem'nos,  226. 

Leo  I.,  Pope,  573. 

Leo  III.,  Leo  the  Isaurian,  emperor  of 
the  Greek  Empire,  repulses  Sara- 
cens, 624;  iconoclastic  movement, 
629,  and  note;  resisted  by  Pope 
Gregory,  631;   attempt  to  conquer 

.    Italy,  631. 

Le-och'a-re§,  Greek  sculptor,  239. 

Le-on'i-das,  king  of  Sparta,  170. 

Lep'i-dus,  member  of  the  Second 
Triumvirate,  455. 

Les'bos,  141. 

Libya,  12,  18. 

Libyan  invasion  of  Egypt,  18,  60. 

Li-cin'i-an  Rogations,  the,  326. 

Li-cin'i-us,  rival  of  Constantine,  516, 
530. 

Licinius  Stolo,  tribune,  326. 

Li-gu'ri-ans,  275. 

Li'ris  River,  the,  331. 

Literature,  Egyptian,  25;  Chaldean, 
45;    early   Greek   Epic   Age,    see 


INDEX. 


655 


Homer;  Lyric  Age,  141 ;  the  Age  of 
Pericles,  204-209 :  Alexandrian  Age, 
255.  258,  259;  Roman,  early,  489; 
Age  of  Cicero,  490;  Augustan  Age, 
491;  second  century  a.d.,492;  de- 
cline in  the  third  century,  514 ;  theo- 
logical character,  514;  continued 
decline  in  fourth  century,  536-542. 

Liv'i-us  An-dro-ni'cus,  489. 

Livy,  the  historian,  277,  491. 

Local  self-government,  nature  of, 
526,  527. 

Lo'cris,  186,  261. 

Loire  River,  the,  625. 

Lombards,  551 ;  Arians,  558;  invade 
Italy,  584,  585;  wars  in  Italy,  632; 
vanquished  by  Pippin  at  the  call  of 
the  Pope,  634 ;  a  vassal  state  of  the 
Franks,  634;  incorporated  in  the 
Frankish  kingdom,  638,  639. 

Lombardy,  iron  crown  of,  638. 

Long  Walls,  of  Athens,  177,  note,  and 
186 ;  rebuilt,  224. 

Luc  an,  491. 

Lu-ca'ni-ans,  274. 

Lu'cer-e§,  Roman  tribe,  282. 

Lu'ci-an,  492. 

Lu-cre'ti-us,  490. 

Lyc'i-an  Confederacy,  264. 

Lycians,  84,  182,  264. 

Ly-cur'gus,  110. 

Lydia,  68,  69,  157. 

Ly-di'a-das,  265,  266,  note. 

Lyric  Age,  the,  141. 

Ly-san'der,  216,  220. 

Mac'ca-bees,  the,  64,  250. 

Macedonia,  84 ;  under  Theban  influ- 
ence, 231;  the  race,  233;  territory 
before  Philip  IL,233;  growth  under 
Philip,  234-236;  Chaeronea,  236; 
mistress  of  Greece,  236 ;  Alexander 
(which  see),  238  ff. ;  one  of  the 
great  powers  of  the  Graeco-Orien- 
tal  world,  247 ;  Gallic  invasion,  248 ; 
history  in  outline  to  220  B.C.,  252; 
supremacy  in  Greece  after  Alexan- 
der, 264,  265;  loses  through  the 
Achaean  League,  265 ;  supremacy 
restored,  267,  268;  alliance  with 
Hannibal,  370,  383;  First  Macedo- 


nian War  with  Rome,  370, 383 ;  Sec- 
ond Macedonian  War,  384 ;  a  Roman 
dependency,  384 ;  a  Roman  province 
after  the  Third  Macedonian  War, 
389. 

Macedonian  army,  235, 

Ma-cri'nus,  Roman  emperor,  461. 

Magism,  70. 

Magna  Graecia,  106,  155,  217,  335, 
351,  359,  489. 

Mag-ne'si-a,  battle  of,  250,  385. 

Mam'er-tines,  359. 

Man'li-us,  T.,  consul,  350. 

Manlius,  Marcus,  330,  319,  411. 

Man-ti-ne'a,  battle  of,  231. 

Mantinea,  broken  up  into  villages  by 
Sparta,  227 ;  restored,  231. 

Marathon,  battle  of,  161-163,  625. 

Mar-cel'lus,  the  "Sword  of  Rome." 
371. 

March  of  the  Ten  Thousand,  the, 
223. 

Mar'ci-an,  573. 

Mar-do'ni-us,  174, 175. 

Ma'ri-us,  395,^  419^26. 

Mark  states,  276. 

Mars,  288. 

Mar'ti-an,  491. 

Martin,  Saint,  538. 

Massilia,  106,  391,  437,  note. 

Mas-sin-nis'sa,  379,  380. 

Mau-ri-ta'ni-a,  626,  note. 

Max-im'i-an,  516. 

Mayfleld,  Frankish  Assembly,  612, 
617,  645. 

Mayors  of  the  Palace,  Frankish,  617. 

Mecca,  621 ,  622. 

Medes,  41,  42,  68,  69. 

Mediterranean  Sea,  function  in  his- 
tory, 81. 

Meg-a-lop'o-lis,  231,  265. 

Meg'a-ra,  125,  141,  157,  185,  187,  265. 

Meg'a-ris,  186. 

Me'li-ans,  214. 

Mem-o-ra-bil'i-a,  of  Xenophon,  207. 

Memphis,  17. 

Me-nan'der,  146,  255. 

Men-e-la'us,  89. 

Mercenary  War,  of  Carthage,  363. 

Mercia,  591. 

Me-ro-vin'gl-ans,  590,  617. 


556 


INDEX. 


Mes-o-po-ta'mi-a,  39,  474. 

Mes-sa'na,  359. 

Mes-se'ne,  231. 

Mes-se'ni-a,  110,  185,  231. 

Me-tau'rus,  battle  of,  373;  influence 
of,  625. 

Metlcs,  i:36,  177. 

Middle  Ages,  484,  549,  564,  595. 

Milan,  Edict  of,  529. 

Miletus,  83,  104,  109,  140,  210. 

Miltiades,  161,  164. 

Minerva,  288. 

Mis'si  Do-min'i-ci,  645. 

Mith-ri-da'tes,  425,  427. 

Mnes'i-cles,  202. 

Modern  history,  defined,  4. 

Moe'si-a,  474. 

Mohamraed,  character  and  career  to 
the  Hegira,  621 ;  change  in  char- 
acter and  policy,  622;  honesty,  621, 
622. 

Mohammedanism,  621-626. 

Mohammedans,  charged  with  burn- 
ing the  Alexandrian  Library,  540. 

Monasticism,  602-605. 

Money,  none  in  ancient  Egypt,  22;  in- 
troduction into  Greece,  119,  note; 
iron,  in  Sparta,  113;  greater  abun- 
dance after  Alexander,  244 ;  Roman, 
only  copper  to  264  B.C.,  349;  lack 
of  money  one  cause  of  "fall"  of 
the  Empire,  552. 

Mongolians,  7. 

Mon-u-men'tum  An-cy-ra'num, 
4(52. 

Moors,  511;  term  defined  as  related 
to  Saracens,  626,  note. 

Mo-ra'vi-a,  640. 

Mun'da,  battle  of,  444. 

Municipia,  Roman,  instituted,  336; 
plan  extended  to  all  Italian  cities, 
424;  extended  over  the  Empire, 
466;  contribution  to  modern  world, 
613. 

Mu-se'um,  Plato's,  258;  Ptolemy's, 
at  Alexandria,  258. 

Myc'a-le,  battle  of,  180. 

My-ce'nae,  86 ;  excavations  at,  86. 

Mycenaean  culture,  87-89. 

Mysteries,  the  Greek,  143, 

Myt-i-le'ne-ans,  214. 


Nae'vi-us,  489. 

Nar-bon'i-dos,  55. 

Nar'ses,  .582,  584. 

Nau-pac'tus,  184. 

Nau-sic'a-a.  89,  note. 

Ne-arch'us,  224. 

Neb-u-chad-nez'zar,  42,  52,  63. 

Ne'co,  19. 

Ne'pos,  Cornelius,  490. 

Nero,  Roman  emperor,  457-,  458 ;  Caius 

Claudius,  the  Consul,  373. 
Ner'va,  459. 
Ne'tad,  battle  of,  571. 
Neu'stri-a,  616,  618. 
Nl-cae'a,  520 ;  Council  of,  535. 
Nlc'i-as,  214,  215;  Peace  of,  214. 
"Nineveh,  40,  41,  72;  see  Assyria. 
Nor'i-cum,  472. 
Northumbria,  591. 

Oc-ta'vi-us,  see  Augustus. 

Octavius,  colleague  of  Gracchus,  410. 

O-do-va'ker  (0-do-a'cer),  572,  574, 
576. 

O-dys'seus,  89,  90,  97,  143. 

Od'ys-sey,  85,  144. 

Oe-no'phy-ta,  163. 

Oligarchies,  Greek,  108;  overthrown 
by  tyrants,  108. 

Olympia,  83,  202. 

Olympian  religion,  the,  100. 

Olympias.  238. 

Olympic  Games,  100. 

Olympus,  100,  168. 

Olynthus,  106,  228,  234. 

Olynthiac  Confederacy,  see  Chal- 
cidic  Confederacy. 

Ordeal,  trial  by,  608. 

Orestes,  imperial  general,  572,  574. 

Oriental  history,  defined,  3. 

Origen,  514. 

Ostracism,  139;  of  oligarchic  lead- 
ers, 164 ;  of  Aristeides,  165 ;  revoked, 
171;  of  Cimon,  186;  of  Themisto- 
cles,  200. 

Os'tro-goths,  see  Goths ;  Arians,  538, 
558;  before  entering  Italy,  575;  con- 
quer Italy,  576;  kingdom  of  Theo- 
dorit,  57(>-579;  Arian  heresy  and 
results,  579. 

Otho,  Roman  emperor.  458. 


INDEX= 


557 


Ovid,  491. 

Oxus  River,  the,  241,  623. 

Pal'a-tine  Mount,  site  of  the  city  of 
Romulus,  278,  279;  federation  with 
other  settlements,  279. 

Pal-my'ra,  461,  478. 

Pam-phyl'l-a,  182. 

Pan-no'ni-a,  472. 

Pan'the-on,  487. 

Papacy,  claim  of  bishops  of  Rome, 
627 ;  six  advantages,  628 ;  relation 
to  Greek  Empire,  628;  freed  from 
rivalry  of  other  patriarchates,  629; 
opposes  emperor  regarding  use  of 
images,  629  ;  the  Great  Schism,  629 ; 
rise  of  a  temporal  state  at  Rome, 
630;  rebellion  against  the  Empire, 
631;  recognized  and  protected  by 
the  Franks,  632,  633;  territory  en- 
larged by  Pippin,  634,  635 ;  confir- 
mation by  Charlemagne,  638 ;  rela- 
tion to  the  Western  Empire,  635, 
646. 

Pa'ros,  141. 

Parrhasius  (Par-ra'shi-us) ,  256. 

Par'the-non,  202. 

Parthians,  438,  511. 

Partnership  emperors,  the,  517, 
518,  520. 

Pa'tri-a  po-tes'tas  (Roman),  285. 

Patriarcli,  an  ecclesiastical  term, 
533. 

Patrician,  a  title  conferred  by  Roman 
emperors,  566,  576. 

Patricians,  282,  284;  family  organi- 
zation, 285;  curiate  organization, 
286;  oligarchic  rule,  309-310;  strug- 
gle with  plebeians,  310-327. 

Pau-sa'ni-as,  Roman  writer,  492; 
Spartan  king,  180. 

Pavia,  638. 

Pei-rae'us,  177,  220,  227. 

Peis-is-trat'i-dae,  132. 

Pei-sis'tra-tus.  131,  134,  141,  157. 

Pe-las'-gi-ans,  98. 

Pe-lop'i-das,  229. 

Pel-o-pon-ne'si-an  League,  156. 

Peloponnesian  War,  the,  211-216. 

Pel-o-pon-ne'sus,  98,  99,  110,  114, 
168. 


Pel'tasts  of  I-phic'ra-tes,  225,  235. 

Pe-na'tes,  91. 

Pen-tel'i-cus,  161. 

Per'g-a-mos,  254. 

Per'ga-mum,  253,  384,  390. 

Per-i-an'der,  109,  141. 

Pericles,  188,  192-197,  200,  202,  205, 
209,  212,  213. 

Per-i-oe'ci,  112. 

Persecution,  of  Christianity,  507- 
510 ;  by  the  Christian  Church,  530, 
440-542 ;  nature  of,  530. 

Per-sep'o-lis,  210. 

Per'seus,  king  of  Macedonia,  388, 
389. 

Persia,  18,  20,  42,  64,  68 ;  rise  of  Em- 
pire, 69;  religion  and  character, 
70,  71 ;  champions  civilization 
against  Scythians,  72;  system  of 
government,  72-77;  post-roads,  76; 
place  in  civilization,  78;  conquers 
Lydia,  157;  conquers  Ionia,  158; 
wars  with  Greece,  152-176;  sig- 
nificance of  defeat,  176;  expelled 
from  Aegean,  180-183;  Peace  of 
Callias,  188;  aids  Sparta  against 
Athens,  215;  revolt  of  Cyrus  the 
Younger,  221 ;  the  "  Ten  Thousand  " 
Greeks,  221,  222;  war  with  Sparta, 
222 ;  allied  with  Thebes  and  Athens, 
223 ;  Cnidus,  224 ;  Peace  of  Antalci- 
das,  226;  attacked  by  Alexander, 
240-241;  fall  of  the  Empire,  241; 
new  Persian  Empire,  of  the  Sas- 
sanidae,  511 ;  invade  Roman  Em- 
pire, 511,  517;  repulsed,  622; 
conquered  by  Saracens,  622,  623; 
culture  under  Saracenic  rule,  626. 

Per'ti-nax,  Roman  emperor,  461. 

Petrine  Supremacy,  doctrine  of, 
627. 

Phar-na'ces,  424. 

Phar-sa'lus,  443. 

Pheid'i-as,  202. 

Phei'don,  109. 

Philip,  II.,  of  Macedon,  231-239;  V., 
370,  383,  384. 

Phi-lip'pi,  battle  of,  454. 

Philippics,  of  Demosthenes,  234. 

Philistines,  12. 
i  Phil-o-poe'men,  268. 


558 


INDEX. 


Philosophy,  Greek,  141, 142,  207,  257. 

Pho'cis,  156,  186,  261. 

Phoe-nic'i-ans,  12,  19,  24,  47,  56-59, 
78,  84,  87,  172,  224. 

Phor'mi-o,  214. 

Phra'try,  the  Greek,  92. 

Phryg'i-ans,  76,  84. 

Physical  geograghy  as  a  factor  in 
historical  development,  12,  15,  57, 
60,  66,  81,  82-84,  99,  272,  276,  557. 

Pindar,  141,  239. 

Pippin,  of  Heristal,  618;  Pippin  the 
Short,  633-635. 

Pla-tae'a,  161,  184;  battle  of,  175, 
176 ;  League  of,  178,  180. 

Plato,  143,  149-151,  207,  258. 

Plau'tus,  489. 

Plebeians,  284,  287,  295-299,  308-327; 
see  Rome. 

Pleb-is-ci'ta,  defined,  318;  binding 
upon  plebs,  318;  binding  upon  the 
whole  state,  322,  323;  senate's  veto 
abolished,  345. 

Pliny,  the  Elder,  491;  the  Younger, 
4(56,  492,  494,  507. 

Plo-ti'nus,  514. 

Plutarch,  492. 

Pnyx,  202. 

Pore-march,  117,  301,  note. 

Pol'li-o,  498. 

Po-lyb'i-us  (Polybios),  489. 

Pol-yg-no'tus,  203. 

Pom-pe'ii,  459,  466. 

Pompey,  395,  431^36,  438,  442-444. 

Pon'ti-fex  Max'i-mus,  446,  463. 

Pontiffs,  Roman,  290,  327. 

Pon-ti-us,  Samnite  general,  350. 

Pontus,  247,  427,  434;  diocese  of,  521. 

Popes,  Gregory  the  Great,  628,  note ; 
Gregory  II.  and  III.,  631;  Hadrian, 
632,  note ;  Leo  I.,  571 ;  Leo  III.,  642 ; 
Stephen,  634. 

Pope,  title,  628,  note;  see  Papacy. 

Porphyry,  514. 

Po-sei'don,  100. 

Pre-fect'ure,  a  city  ruled  by  a  Roman 
prefect,  336,  340;  one  of  four  ad- 
ministrative divisions  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  520,  521 ;  table  of,  5^1. 

Prae-nes'te,  276. 

Prae-to'ri-ans,  463,  465. 


Prae'tor,  original  name  of  consul, 

301,  note ;  new  officer,  327,  344, 346. 

Prax-it'e-les,  202;  the  Hermes  of, 
202. 

Prehistoric  life,  1. 

Proconsuls,  355. 

Propraetors,  355. 

Prop-y-lae'a,  of  the  Athenian  Acropo- 
lis, 202. 

Provence,  437,  note. 

Provincial  system,  see  Roman. 

Psa-met'i-chus,  19. 

Ptah'ho-tep,  30. 

Ptol'e-my,  I.,  251 ;  II.  (Philadelphus), 
251,258;  IlL,  251. 

Ptolemy  the  Scientist,  492. 

Pub-lil'i-an  Law,  the,  318. 

Punic  faith,  357. 

Punic  Wars,  First,  356-362;  Second, 
36()-375;  Third,  379-382. 

Punjab,  the,  69,  241,  250. 

Pu-pi-e'nus,  Roman  emperor,  461. 

Pydna,  battle  of,  389. 

Pyr'rhus,  335,  356,  357. 

Py-thag-'o-ras,  142. 

Pyth-a-go-re'ans,  207. 


Quad-riv'i-um,  the,  483. 
Quaes'tor,  203,  327,  346;  title  of  an 

imperial  officer,  522. 
Qmn-til'i-an,  491. 


"Race,"  6-10. 

Race  character,  10,  66,  84,  99. 

Rad'o-g-ast,  563. 

Ra-me'ses  II.,  28,  34. 

Ramnes,  a  Roman  tribe,  282. 

Ravenna,  576;  exarchate,  584,  585, 
632. 

Representative  government,  not  a 
feature  even  of  the  Greek  federa- 
tions, 264  ;  germs  of,  in  Roman 
provincial  assemblies,  467 ;  new 
opportunity  for,  among  Teutons, 
614. 

Rex  sa-cro'rum,  300. 

Rhae'ti-a,  472. 

Rhodes,  247,  253,  254,  384. 

Rik'i-mer  (Ricimer) ,  572. 

Roland,  638,  note ;  song  of,  638,  note. 


INDEX. 


659 


Boman  army,  early,  of  centuries, 
295;  development  of  the  legion, 
352-354;  camp,  353;  professional, 
355;  Marius'  reforms,  421;  impe- 
rial, 468-470 ;  barbarians  admitted, 
469 ;  a  means  of  amalgamating  the 
Empire,  481,  note;  reform  by  Dio- 
cletian, 522 ;  superior  morals  to  the 
last,  543;  difficulty  of  filling  up, 
543.    See  Army. 

Roman  Assembly,  curiate,  a  patrician 
body,  286  ;  exclusion  of  plebs,  287, 
293;  supplanted,  296,  345;  centuri- 
ate,  from  the  army  of,  295,  296; 
crystallizes,  297  ;  aristocratic 
method  of  voting,  297 ;  power 
shifted  to  tribal  assembly,  345; 
wealth  deprived  of  its  old  impor- 
tance, 345;  senatorial  veto  abol- 
ished, 345 ;  tribal  {comitia  tributa) 
rise,  317-319,  222-323 ;  nature  of  the 
tribes,  337 ;  reorganization  and  the- 
oretic sovereignty,  345 ;  decay,  399 ; 
Italians  admitted,  424;  under  the 
Empire,  462, 

Roman  citizenship,  extended  to  the 
allies,  424;  to  Cisalpine  Gaul,  440, 
448;  to  communities  in  Gaul  and 
Spain  by  Caesar,  448,  480 ;  expan- 
sion under  the  Empire,  480. 

Roman  clients,  287  ;  no  vote  in  the 
curia,  293. 

Roman  colonies,  336;  project  of 
Gracchus  to  found  out  of  Italy,  415 ; 
change  in  plan — become  socialistic, 
415;  project  abandoned,  417,  418; 
plan  revived  by  Caesar,  447. 

Roman  Empire,  monarchy  inevita- 
ble in  the  first  century  B.C.,  439, 
441;  Caesar's  campaigns,  442-444; 
Caesar's  constructive  work,  445- 
450;  civil  war  renewed  after  Cae- 
sar's murder,  451-456  ;  Augustus 
establishes  finally,  456;  table  of 
emperors  and  reigns,  to  Diocletian, 
458-461 ;  character  of  government, 
460,  461  ;  constitution,  4(52-466  ; 
army,  468-470:  frontiers,  471^75; 
society  of  the  first  two  centuries  — 
prosperous  and  happy,  476-482  ; 
education,  483,  484;    architecture. 


485-488;  literature,  48^492;  mor- 
als, 493-504;  rise  of  Christianity 
(see  Christianity),  505-510;  perse- 
cutions, 508-510;  social  decline  in 
the  third  century,  511-514  ;  reigns 
from  Diocletian  to  Theodosius,  SUti- 
519;  increased  centralization,  520- 
525 ;  material  decay  continued  in 
fourth  century,  543;  social  classes, 
545-^549;  taxation,  551;  causes  of 
decay,  544,  552,  553 ;  Teutonic  con- 
quest of  the  West  (see  Teutons), 
562  ff.  ;  summary  of  contribution  to 
the  modern  world,  613,  615.  See 
Roman  Empire  of  the  East  and 
Roman  Empire  of  the  West. 

Roman  Empire  of  the  East  (Greek, 
or  Byzantine,  Empire),  reigns, 573; 
Oriental  character,  580  ;  Slav  inva- 
sions, 581 ;  restoration  under  Jus- 
tinian, 582 ;  repulses  of  the  Persians, 
682;  decay  after  Justinian,  624; 
new  attacks  by  Slavs  and  Persians, 
624;  repulse  of  Saracens,  624;  re- 
vival of  the  Empire  under  Leo  III., 
624 ;  relation  to  the  Frankish  state 
of  Charlemagne,  639 ;  usurpation  of 
Irene,  641  ;  relation  to  Charle- 
magne's new  Empire  in  the  West, 
643,  644. 

Roman  Empire  of  the  West,  estab- 
lished by  Charlemagne,  641 ;  theory 
of,  641,  643;  contrasted  with  the 
Greek  Empire,  644. 

Roman  law,  unwritten,  patrician, 311; 
first  codification,  the  Twelve 
Tables,  320-322;  Caesar's  attempt 
to  codify,  447 ;  gentler  nature  in  the 
early  Empire,  498-500;  advance  in 
the  third  century,  514 ;  debt  to  the 
despotism  of  Diocletian,  525;  The- 
odosian  Code,  553,  573;  Justinian 
Code,  583:  influence  upon  later 
Europe.  583,  606. 

Roman  names.  .374,  note. 

Roman  Province,  the,  in  Gaul,  437, 
note. 

Roman  provincial  system,  inaugura- 
ted, 364;  deterioration,  401;  marks 
of,  402;  the  governor,  403;  "es- 
tates of  the  Roman  people,"  404; 


560 


INDEX. 


Caesar  and  the  provinces,  440,  448 ; 
under  the  Empire,  466, 467, 476, 477 ; 
reorganized,  521. 

Roman  religion,  274,  note,  288,  289, 
2i)0,  2!)l,  501. 

Roman  roads,  343,  470,  478. 

Roman  senate,  under  the  kings,  294; 
how  affected  by  the  expulsion,  306; 
veto  of  tribunes  upon,  322;  loses 
veto  upon  the  assembly,  345;  the 
rule  of,  347  ;  political  center  of  the 
world,  386;  decline  and  misgov- 
ernment,  399-404;  senate  and  the 
Gracchi,  410^18;  Sulla's  restora- 
tion of,  429;  makes  Pompey  its 
champion  against  Caesar,  438; 
Caesar's  reconstruction  of,  448; 
under  the  early  Empire,  462 ;  sinks 
into  a  city  council,  524. 

Roman  taxation,  under  the  Empire, 
546,  547,  551,  552. 

Roman  "tribes,"317,337,343,345,425. 

Rome,  place  in  history,  3,  269;  con- 
trasted with  Greece,  270 ;  compared 
with  Anglo-Saxons,  270;  geography 
of  Italy,  271-272;  of  Rome,  276; 
sources  of  early  history,  277 ;  ab- 
stract of  legends,  278 ;  conclusions 
as  to  regal  Rome,  280-300 ;  consul- 
ship, 301-304;  dictatorship,  305; 
struggles  between  patricians  and 
plebeians,  308  ff. ;  equalization  of 
the  orders,  327;  conquest  of  Italy, 
3^8-335;  Italy  under  Roman  rule, 
336-342;  policy  of  Rome,  343;  per- 
fected constitution  of  the  Repub- 
lic, 344-347;  society,  349,  350; 
affected  by  Magna  Graecia,  351 ; 
army,  352-354;  conquest  of  the 
western  Mediterranean,  357-382; 
provincial  system,  364;  the  sole 
great  power,  376;  winning  the 
East,  383-.390;  new  civil  strife  — 
class  divisions,  396-406 ;  misgovern- 
ment  of  Italy  and  the  provinces, 
400-406;  the  Gracchi,  407-418;  Ju- 
gurthine  War,  420;  Cimbri  and 
Teutones,  421;  Social  War,  423; 
Italy  incorporated  in,  424;  Marius 
and  Sulla,  425-427;  Sulla's  rule, 
42&-430;  Pompey  and  Crassus,  432- 


434;  new  expansion  in  the  East, 
434;  expansion  in  the  West  (Cae- 
sar), 437 ;  Caesar  and  Pompey,  438 ; 
Roman  Empire,  which  see ;  political 
death  for  the  city,  477 ;  new  walls 
by  Aurelian,  461,  511;  sacked  by 
Alaric,  563,  572;  by  Vandals,  667, 
.672;  by  Totila,  582;  papal  seat, 
627-630  (see  Papacy);  "elects" 
Charlemagne  emperor,  642. 

Romulus,  278,  299, 

Romulus  Au-gus'tu-lus,  572,  574, 
643. 

Roncesvalles  (ron-thes-val'ygs),  bat- 
tle of,  638,  note. 

Rosetta  Stone,  11. 

Ru'bi-con,  Caesar  crosses  the,  442. 

Sa-bines',  274,  278,  328. 

Sa-gun'tum,  366. 

Sa'is,  Saite  dynasty,  19. 

Sal'a-mis,  Athenian  War  for,  125; 
battle  of,  lg5,  171, 172;  significance 
of,  625. 

Sal 'lust,  490. 

Sam'nites,  274,  328,  332,  334,  427. 

Sa'mos,  180. 

Sappho  (saf'o),  141. 

Sar'a-cens,  73,  624,  626,  638;  term 
defined,  626,  note.  See  also  Arabs, 
Moors,  Mohammedans. 

Sardinia,  87 ;  a  Roman  province,  363. 

Sar'dis,  76,  158,  226. 

Sar'gon  the  Elder,  40,  55 ;  II.,  41, 49. 

Sas-san'i-dae,  kings  of  Persia,  511. 

Saxons,  a  Teutonic  people,  555;  con- 
quer Britain,  591;  Saxons  on  the 
continent  —  wars  with  Charle- 
magne, 637. 

Schlie'mann,  excavations  by,  86. 

School  of  the  Palace,  Charle- 
magne's, 647. 

Science,  Egyptian,  26;  Chaldean,  45- 
46:  early  Greek  confounded  with 
philosophy,  142;  in  the  Age  of 
Pericles,  still  bound  up  with  phi- 
losophy, 207;  Alexandrian  Age, 257- 
259;  under  Roman  Empire,  492; 
decline  in  third  century,  614 ;  rapid 
decline  in  fourth  century,  540-542; 
contempt  of  Christian  Church  for, 


INDEX. 


661 


540;  persecution,  541;  Mohamme- 
dan, 626. 

Scip'i-o,  Publius  Cornelius  S.  Afri- 
canus,  371,  374;  Publius  Corne- 
lius S.  Aemilianus,  Africanus  the 
Younger,  382,  399,  note,  407. 

Scy'ros,  226. 

Scyth'i-ans,  41,  71,  72. 

Se-ges'ta,  184. 

Se-leu'ci-dae,  rulers  of  Syria,  of  the 
house  of  Seleucus,  250,  386. 

Se-leu'cus,  general  of  Alexander  and 
king  of  Syria,  250. 

Semites,  8,  43,  59,  66. 

Seneca,  458,  491. 

Sen-nach'er-ib,  41,  54. 

Sep'tu-a-gint,  the,  258. 

Se-ra'pi-on,  burning  of,  540. 

Ser-to'ri-us,  426. 

Ser'vi-us  Tul'li-us,  sixth  king  ("  ty- 
rant")  of  Rome,  278,  299 ;  walls  of, 
280 :  census  of  classes,  295,  296 ;  cen- 
turies, 295,  296. 

Se-ve'rus,  Alexander  (Antoninus), 
461,  478.  511;  Sep-tim'i-us,  461,  511. 

Sicilian  Slave  Wars,  406. 

Sicily,  155,  359,  361,  363. 

Sic'y-on,  freed  by  Aratus,  265 ;  joins 
Achaean  League,  265. 

Si-mon'i-des,  141. 

Slavery,  Greek,  Spartan,  112;  Athe- 
nian, 210;  Greek  civilization  rested 
on,  210;  Roman,  405,  406 ;  amelior- 
ated under  the  Empire,  498 ;  further 
softened  by  Christianity,  532;  dis- 
appears largely  in  serfdom,  549, 

Slavs  (Sclavs,  Slavonians),  3,  4,  511, 
569,  582,  624. 

Social  War,  the,  in  Italy,  423. 

Socrates,  quoted,  143,  149,  151;  phi- 
losophy, 207 ;  death,  207. 

Sog-di-a'na,  241. 

Soissons  (Swiison),  battle  of,  287; 
vase  of,  610,  note. 

Solomon,  62,  63,  73. 

Solon,  19,  26,  120,  125-129,  131. 

Sophists,  207. 

Sophocles,  204. 

Spain,  Carthaginian  power  in,  366; 
Roman  and  Carthaginian,  369,  371, 
373;  Roman  province,  374;  war  for 


independence,  377;  Romanization, 
378;  Teutonic  invasion,  565,  567; 
Visigothic  kingdom,  564;  Moham- 
medan conquest,  625;  Saracenic 
culture  in,  626;  North  conquered 
by  Charlemagne,  638. 

Sparta,  83, 99,  106 ;  history  to  Persian 
War,  110-113;  constitution,  111- 
113;  contrast  with  Athens,  114, 
116;  recognized  head  of  Greece, 
156;  refuses  to  aid  Ionia,  157,  158; 
Persian  heralds,  160;  excuse  for 
absence  from  Marathon,  161^  in 
the  Persian  "War,  167-176 ;  protests 
against  Athenian  Walls,  177 ;  head 
of  proposed  Plataean  League,  178 ; 
disrupts  the  League  by  withdraw- 
ing from  defense  of  Asiatic  Greeks, 
180 ;  purpose  to  attack  Athens,  185 ; 
asks  aid  from  Athens,  185;  war 
with  Athens,  185-187  ;  Thirty  Years' 
Truce,  188;  Peloponnesian  War, 
211;  resources,  212;  events,  214; 
buys  Persian  aid  by  betraying  Asi- 
atic Greeks,  215 ;  destroys  Athenian 
Walls,  216;  Spartan  supremacy — 
rule  of  harmosts  and  decarchies, 
219;  decay  at  home,  221 ;  aids  Cyrus 
against  Persian  king,  222;  Agesi- 
laus  invades  Persian  Empire,  222; 
Corinthian  War,  223 ;  loss  of  mari- 
time Empire,  224;  land  supremacy 
threatened  (Iphicrates'  peltasts), 
225;  Peace  of  Antalcidas,  226;  ar- 
rogant rule,  227 ;  crushes  Chalcidic 
confederacy,  228;  revolt  of  Thebes, 
229 ;  Leuctra,  230 ;  citizens  decreased 
to  1500,  230;  humbled,  231 ;  refuses 
to  join  Achaean  League,  265,  note; 
war  with  the  League,  266,  267 :  so- 
cialistic reforms  of  Agis  and  Cleo- 
menes,  266;  Macedonian  conquest, 
267 ;  sacked  by  Goths,  511,  563. 

Spartacus,  406,  433. 

Spartan  Assembly,  111. 

Spartan  harmosts,  219. 

Sphac-te'ri-a,  battle  of,  214. 

Sphinx,  24. 

Spu'ri-us  Mae'li-us,  319,  411. 

Sta-g-i'ra,  birthplace  of  Aristotle,  207- 

Ste-sich'o-rus,  141. 


562 


INDEX. 


Sti-li'cho,  563,  572. 

Sto'i-cism,  257. 

Stra'bo,  491. 

Strass'burg,  battle  of,  587,  588. 

Sue-to'ni-u8,  492. 

Sue-vi,  555,  558,  565,  567. 

Sulla,  395,  420,  423,  425,  427-430,  433. 

Sul-plc'i-us,  tribune,  425. 

Su'sa,  76,  240. 

Sussex,  kingdom  of  the  South  Saxons 

in  Britain,  591. 
Syracuse,  106,  217,  328,  370,  375. 
Syria,  kingdom  of,  247,  250,  385,  434. 

Tacitus,  historian,  quoted,  460,  507, 
557,  559;  place  in  literature,  492; 
distrust  of,  when  satirizing  society, 
494;  the  Roman  emperor,  461. 

Talmud,  the,  49. 

Tan'a-gra,  battle  of,  186. 

Tar-ea'tum,  106,  335. 

Tarquin,  the  First,  278;  the  Proud, 
278.  299,  300;  Lucius  T.  Collatinus, 
300. 

Tartars,  72,  241,  511,  569,  570,  626, 
note. 

Te-lem'a-ehus,  90. 

Tem'pe,  Vale  of,  168, 169. 

Terence,  489. 

Ter-en-til'i-us,  tribune,  320. 

Ter-pan'der,  141. 

Ter-tul'li-an,  514. 

Tes'try,  battle  of,  614,  618. 

Teu'to-berg-  Forest,  battle  of,  458, 
472. 

Teu-to'nes.  421. 

Teutonic  folkmoot,  559;  shrinking 
up  after  conquests,  612 ;  survival  in 
Britain,  612,  614,  and  in  Gaul,  612; 
relation  to  representative  govern- 
ment, 614. 

Teutonic  king-ship,  559. 

Teutonic  Law.  reduced  to  codes, 
606;  personality  of,  606;  methods 
of  trial,  608;  money  atonement, 
609;  self-d eve! oping  character,  614. 

Teutonic  reverence  for  Rome,  564, 
5m,  597,  599. 

Teutons,  part  in  history,  8,  9;  early 
attack,  first  century  bc,  421,  561 ; 
in  time  of  Caesar.  437, 561 ;  renewed 


in  third  century  a.d.,  511,  561 ;  in- 
filtration into  the  Empire  before 
their  conquest,  554,  561;  home  in 
the  fourth  century,  555;  peoples, 
555;  culture,  556;  character,  557, 
558;  religion,  557,  hoS;  conversion 
to  Ariauism  before  the  conquest, 
532, 558 ;  political  and  social  organ- 
ization, 559,  560;  bursting  of  the 
barriers  376-409  a.d.,  562-568;  at- 
tacks no  more  formidable  than 
those  repulsed  earlier,  543,  596; 
contrasted  with  Slavs  and  Tura- 
nians, 569 ;  attacked  by  Huns,  570, 
571;  Teutonic  generals  in  Itafy 
behind  puppet  emperors,  572,  574 ; 
first  union  of  the  new  Teutonic 
states,  under  Theodoric,  578;  con- 
quest of  Britain,  591 ;  effect  of 
invasions,  595;  preservation  of 
civilization,  597 ;  relation  between, 
and  conquered  populations,  598; 
adopt  idea  of  Roman  Empire,  599, 
642 ;  nature  of  Christianity  among, 
600;  influence  of  conquests  upon 
political  institutions,  610;  effect 
upon  growth  of  Papacy,  628 ;  sum- 
mary of  contributions,  614,  615. 
See  also  Goths,  Burgundians,  Van- 
dals, Franks,  Saxons. 

Tha'les,  19,  141,  142,  157. 

Thap'sus,  battle  of,  444. 

Tha'sos,  rebellion  of,  185. 

Theban  phalanx,  230,  235. 

Thebes  (Egyptian),  18. 

Thebes  (Greek),  133,  167;  welcomes 
Persians,  171,  223;  head  of  Boeotia, 
226 ;  citadel  seized  by  Sparta,  227 ; 
revolt  of  Pelopidas,  229;  Leuctra, 
230:  supremacy,  231;  defeat  at 
Chaeronea.  236;  revolt  and  de- 
struction, 239. 

The-mis'to-cles,  163-165,  171,  173, 
177,  200, 

Theocracy,  621. 

The-oc'ri-tus,  255. 

The-od'o-ric  the  Goth,  575-578. 

The-o-do'si-an  Code,  the,  553,  573. 

Theodosius  the  Great,  518, 526, 530, 
541,5(52:  IL,  573. 

The-ogr'nis,  141,  145. 


INDEX. 


563 


The-ram'e-nes,  220. 

Thermopylae^  168,  170, 186. 

Ther-si'tes,  97. 

Tlie'seus,l)3. 

Thes'pis,  131,  141,  204. 

Thirty  Tyrants,  at  Athens,  220;  in 
tlie  Roman  Empire,  461. 

Thirty  Years'  Truce,  the,  between 
Athens  and  Sparta,  188. 

Thor  (Tor),  588. 

Thrace,  84,  233,  521. 

Thras-y-bu'lus,  220. 

Thucydides,  quoted,  177,  200,  209; 
place  as  a  historian,  206. 

Thu-rin'gi-a,  589,  618,  619. 

Thtit-mo'sis  III.,  18. 

Ti-be'ri-us,  Roman  emperor,  458,  462, 
note,  464. 

Ti-ci'nus,  battle  of,  367. 

Ti'g-lath-Pi-le'ser,  I.,  41,  62;  II.,  41. 

Tigris  River,  38. 

Ti-mo'le-on,  217. 

Titles,  Roman  tribe,  282. 

Titus,  Roman  erjiperor,  459. 

To'tem-ism,  27. 

Tot'i-la,  Gothic  king,  582. 

Tours  (toor) ,  battle  of,  626. 

Trajan,  Roman  emperor,  459;  cor- 
respondence with  Pliny  regarding 
government,  466;  regarding  Chris- 
tians, 507;  attitude  toward  perse- 
cutions, 507,  509;  extends  Empire 
to  greatest  limits,  474. 

Trajan's  Column,  487. 

Tras-i-me'ne,  Lake,  battle  of,  367. 

Treason,  origin  of  modern  law,  462, 
note. 

Tre'bi-a,  battle  of,  367. 

Tri-bal'lans,  233. 

Tribunes,  Roman,  established  by 
plebeian  secession,  and  powers, 
315-316;  abolished  by  decemvirs, 
321;  restored  by  second  secession, 
321;  powers  enlarged,  321;  under 
the  perfected  Republican  constitu- 
tion, 346;  Sulla's  attack  upon, 
429;  power  in  later  Republic,  439; 
agency  of  the  Empire,  463. 
Tri-um'vi-rate,  First,  436-438;  Sec- 
ond, 452-455. 
Triv'1-um,  the,  483. 


Troy,  85,  87,  97,  100. 

Tul'lus  Hos-til'i-us,  king  of  Rome,. 

278. 
Tu-ra'ni-ans,  569. 
Turks,  73,  569,  626,  note. 
Twelve  Tables,  Roman,  321,  322. 
Twilight  of  the  Gods,  557. 
"Tyrants,"  Greek,  109;  Roman, 278. 
Tyre,  59,  240. 
Tyr-tae'us,  141. 

Ul-flVas,  538,  556. 

Ul'pi-an,  Roman  jurist,  461,  514; 
softens  Roman  Law,  as  to  women, 
495;  as  to  slavery,  500. 

Universities,  origin,  258;  in  Alex- 
andrian Age,  258;  under  Roman 
Empire,  483. 

Ur,  40,  51. 

U'ti-ca,  58,  357,  382. 

Va'lens,  Roman  emperor,  518,  562. 

Val-en-tin'i-an,  I.,  Roman  emperor, 
518;  XL,  518;  III.,  572. 

Va-le'ri-an,  511. 

Valerian  Law  of  Appeal,  303,  305, 
322. 

Valerio-Horatian  Law,  322,  323. 

Va-le'ri-us,  Man'i-us,  314. 

Valerius  Pub-li-co'la,  303. 

Vandals,  Teutonic  people,  555 ;  Ari- 
ans,  558;  invasion,  565;  kingdom 
in  Spain,  567 ;  in  Africa,  567 ;  char- 
acter, 576;  sack  Rome,  557,  572; 
conquered  by  Belisarius,  567,  583; 
numbers,  596. 

Vap'hi-o  cups,  87. 

Var'ro,  Roman  consul,  369 ;  historian, 
490. 

Va'rus,  Roman  general,  472. 

Ve'ii,  329. 

Ve-ne'ti,  275,  571. 

Venice,  571. 

Venus  of  Melos,  256. 

Verden,  Massacre  of,  637. 

Vergil,  254,  269,  491. 

Verona,  battle  of,  676. 

Ver'res,  403. 

Ves-pa'si-an,  Roman  emperor,  458, 
459. 

Vestal  Virgins,  290. 


564 


INDEX. 


Vi'a  Ap'pi-a,  343. 
Vir-i-a'thus,  377. 
Vis'l-goths  (see  also  Goths),  Arians, 

538,558;  admitted  south  of  Danube, 

562;    victory  at  Adrianople,   562; 

under  Alarie,  563 ;  sack  Rome,  563 ; 

kingdom  in  Gaul  and  Spain,  564, 

567 ;  aid  Aetius  against  Attila,  570 ; 

dispossessed  of  South  Gaul  by  Clo- 

vis,  589;  numbers,  596. 
Vi-tel'li-us,  Roman  emperor,  458. 
Vol'e-ro,  Pub-lil'i-us,  318. 
Vol'sci-ans,  274,  314,  328. 
Vul'gate,  the,  538. 

Wars  of  the  Succession,  246. 

Wer'geld,  609. 

Wes'sex,  kingdom  of  "West  Saxons, 

in  Britain,  591, 
Whit'by,  Council  of,  594. 
Wid'u-kind,  637. 
Wo'den,  558. 


Woman,  position  in  AncientEgypt,  23; 
in  Chaldea,  47 ;  in  Sparta,  113;  in 
Age  of  Pericles,  210 ;  in  Alexandrian 
Age,  254 ;  in  Republican  Rome,  285 ; 
improvement  under  the  Empire, 
495, 500 ;  among  early  Teutons,  557. 

Worship  of  Emperors,  in  Roman 
Empire,  464,  477. 

Xe-noph'a-nes,  142. 
Xen'o-phon,  41,  206,  222,  226. 
Xerx'es,  166,  167-174. 

Yeomanry,  Roman,  decline  after 
Punic  Wars,  396,  398. 

Zama,  battle  of,  374. 

j3eno,    Emperor   at    Conrtantinople, 

573,  574,  576;   the  Stoic,  257. 
Zenobia,  queen  of  Palmyra,  461. 
Zeus,  100,  288. 
Zeu'xis,  256. ' 
Zo-ro-as'ter,  70. 


References  for 
West's    Ancient    History 

PREPARED  BY  RAYMOND  QETTEL 
HISTORY     1  URSINUS  COLLEGE 


INTRODUCTION 

Morgan  :  Anc.  Society,  Chs.  1-3. 
Chaillu  :  Viking  Age.  Colby  :  Gen. 
Hist.,  Ch.  I.  Fisher:  Gen.  Hist., 
Ch.  I.     Myers  :  Anc.  Hist.,  Int. 


Part  I.  Oriental 

Chapter  I. 
Andrews  :  Gen.  Hist.,  pp.    25-35. 
Colby,  Ch.  2. 


Chapter  III.  The  Tigris-Eu- 
phrates States 

Colby,  Ch.  4.  Fisher,  Ch.  5. 
Laurie,  pp.  53-63-  Myers,  Chs. 
3-7.  Rawlinson  :  Anc.  Monarchies, 
Vols.  I.,  II.     Code  of  Hammurabi. 


Chapter  IV.  Phcenicia  and 

THE  Hebrews 
Sec.  I.— Colby,    Ch.  6.      Fisher, 
Ch.  6.     Myers,  Ch.  9. 


Chapter  II.  Egypt  \ 

Colby,  Ch.  3.  Fisher,  Ch.  4. 
Myers,  Chs.  1-2.  Rawlinson  :  Anc. 
Egypt.  Brugsch  :  Egypt  under  the 
Pharaohs.  Laurie  :  Hist.  Survey  of 
Pre-Christian  Education,  pp.  10-48. 
Chataquan,  Vol.  X.,  p.  589. 


Sec.  2.— Colby,  Ch.  5.  Fisher, 
Ch.  7.  Myers,  Ch.  8.  Laurie, 
pp.  65-100. 


Chaptkr  V.  Persia  Sees.     4,    5. — Myers,    pp.    35-40. 

Colby,    Ch.  8.       Fisher,    Ch.    8.  i  Morgan  :  Anc.  Society,  pp.  215-255. 
Myers,  Chs.     10-12.     Oman  :  Hist.    Fowler:   City  State,  Chs.  1-3.     De- 
of  Greece,    Ch.    13.       Laurie,    pp.  [  Coulanges  :  Anc.  City,  Bks.  I. -III. 
178-195.      Rawlinson  :   Anc.    Mon-  j 
archies.  Vol.  III.  ! 


Part  II.  Greece 

Chapter  I. 
Myers  :  Hist,  of    Greece,    Ch.  i. 
Oman  :  Hist,  of  Greece,    Chs.  1,  2. 
Grote  :  Hist. of  Greece,  Vol.  II.,  pp. 
211-236. 


Chapter  II. 

Sees.   1-3.— Grote,   Vol.  II.,  Chs. 

20,  21.      Myers,    Ch.    2.        Oman, 

Ch.  3.     Botsford  :  Hist,  of  Greece, 

pp.  I- 13.      Chat.   Vol.  XXIV.,  pp. 


635-665. 


Chat.   Vol.  XXIV. 
Iliad  and  Odyssey. 


Chapter  III. 
Sees.  1-3. — Oman,  Chs.  4,  5. 
Myers,  pp.  40-58.  Botsford,  pp. 
20-30.  Grote,  Vol.  I.  Chat.  Vol. 
XVII.,  p.  144.  Chat.  Vol.  XVI., 
p.  163. 


Sec.    4. — Oman,    Chs.    6   and   9. 
Myers,  Ch.  5.     Botsford,  pp.  30-40. 


Sec.  5.— Myers,    Ch.   6.     Oman, 
Ch.  10.     Fowler,  Ch.  4. 


Sec.  6.— Myers,  Ch.  4.  Oman, 
Chs.  7,  8.  Botsford,  pp.  56-63.  Plu- 
tarch :  Lycurgus. 


Chapter  V. 
Sec.  I. — Oman,  Chs.  22,  23.  My- 
ers, Ch.  15.     Botsford,  Ch.  8. 


Sec.  7.— Myers,  Ch.  7.  Oman, 
Chs.  II,  12,  16.  Botsford,  pp.  41-56 
and  Ch.  4.  Fowler,  Chs.  5,  6.  Bots- 
ford :  Athen.  Cons.,  Chs.  7-1 1.  Plu- 
tarch :  Solon, 


Sec.  8.— Botsford,  Ch.  5.  Jevons 
Hist,  of  Gk.  Lit. 


Chapter  IV. 
Myers,  Chs.  8-14.     Botsford, Chs. 
6,  7.     Oman,  Chs.  U^iS  and  17-20. 
Plutarch  :  Aristides,   Themistocles. 
Creasy  :  World's  Battles,  Ch.  i. 


Sec.  2.— Oman,  Chs.  24,  25.  Bots- 
ford, Ch.  9  and  pp.  217-227.  My- 
ers, Ch.  16.  Plutarch  :  Pericles. 
Laurie,  pp.  196-300.  Jevons  :  Hist, 
of  Gk.  Lit.  Munroe  :  Source  Bk. 
of  Hist,  of  Ed. ,  Part  I.  Jebb :  Greek 
Lit. 


Sec.  3.— Botsford,  Ch.  10  and  pp. 
227-238.  Oman,  Chs.  26-34.  My- 
ers, Chs.  17-22.  Plutarch  :  Alcibi- 
ades,  Nicias.     Creasy,  Ch.  2. 


Sec.  4— Myers,  Ch.  24.  Botsford, 
Ch.  12.     Oman,  Chs  21  and  37. 


Chapter  VI.       '  Chapter  II. 

Sec.  I.— Botsford,  Ch.  13.  My- {  Sees,  i,  2.— Myers,  Ch.  27.  Bots- 
ers,  Ch.  22.  Oman,  Clis.  35,  36  :  ford,  pp.  318-330.  Mahaffy  :  Greek 
a"^^  38,  39.  '      Life. 


Sec.  2.     Botsford,  Ch.    14. 
ers,  Ch.  23.     Oman,  Ch.  40. 


My- 


Sec.  3.— Myers,  Ch.  25.  Oman, 
Chs.  41-43.  Botsford,  Ch.  15.  Plu- 
tarch :  Demosthenes. 


Part  111.    Qraeco°Oriental    . 

Chapter  I. 
Myers,  Ch.  26.     Oman,    Ch.   44. 
Botsford,    pp.    310-318.     Plutarch  : 
Alexander.      Abbott :     Alexander. 
Creasy,  Ch.  3. 


Sec.  3.— Jevons  :  Hist,  of  Greek 
Ivit.  Chat.  Vol.  XVI.,  p.  401  and 
P-  531. 


Chapter  III. 
Wilson  :   The   State,    pp.   50-53. 
Plutarch  :  Agis,  Cleomenes,  Aratus. 


Part  IV.  Rome 

Chapter  I. 
Sees.    1-4. — Myers  :     Rome  :     its 
Rise  and  Fall,    Ch.    I.      Botsford  : 
Hist,  of  Rome,  Ch.    I.      How   and 
Leigh  :  Hist,  of  Rome,  Chs.  i.  2. 


Sec.  5.— Myers,  Ch.  4.  H.  and  ly. 
Ch.  3.  Botsford,  Ch.  2.  Plutarch: 
Romulus.  Munro  :  Source  Book, 
pp.  2-5,  66-77. 


Chapter  II. 
Sees.  2,  3. — Myers,    Ch.    2.      H. 
and  L.,  Ch.  4.     Botsford,  pp.  22-27. 
DeCoulanges,  pp.  299-314.    Morey  : 
Roman  Law,  Period  I.,  Chs.  i,  2. 


Sec.  4.— H.  and  h.,  pp.  288-292. 
Myers,  Ch.  3.  Munro  :  S.  B.,  pp. 
6-21. 


Sec.  5.— H.  and  L.,    Ch.  5.     Ab- 
bott :  Roman  Pol.  Ins.,  Chs.  i,  2. 


Chapter  III. 
Myers,  Ch.  5.     H.  and  L.,    Chs. 

6,  8,  9,  12.  Botsford,  Ch.  4.  Mun- 
ro :  S.  B.,  pp.  41-65.     Fowler,   Ch. 

7.  Abbott,  Chs.  3-1 1.  Hadley  : 
Roman  Law,  Ch.  4.  Morey:  Rom- 
an Law,  Ch.  3. 


Chapter  IV. 
Botsford,  Ch.  3.     Myers,    Ch.    6. 
H.    and   L.,    Chs.    7,   10,  11,  13-16. 
Plutarch  :  Pyrrhus. 


Chapter  V. 

Fowler,  Ch.  8.  H.  and  L.,  Chs.  28- 

30.     Abbott,  pp.  220-244.     Munro  : 

S.  B.,  pp.  23-40.     Morey,  Period  II. 

Myers,  Chs.  23-25. 


Chapter  VI. 
Myers,  Chs.  7-9  and  11.  Botsford, 
Ch.  5.  H.  and  L.,Chs.  17-24.  Mun- 
ro, pp.  78-91.  Plutarch  :  Fabius, 
Marcellus.  Creasy,  Ch.  4.  Abbott: 
Hannibal. 


Chaptkr  VII. 
H.  and  L.,    Chs.    25-27.     Myers, 
Ch.  10.     Botsford,  pp.  1 16-123. 


Chapter  II. 
Sees.  1-3. — Botsford,  pp.   204-276 
and   Ch.    15.     Myers,    Chs.    15-17. 
Munro,  pp.  217-237.     Morey,  Peri- 
ods III.-IV.     Creasy,  Ch.  5. 


Chapter  VIII.  ! 

Botsford,  pp.  129-187.  Myers,  |  Sees.  4-5. — Munro,  pp.  164-216. 
Chs.  12-14.  H.  and  L.,  Chs.  31-50.  i  Abbott,  Chs.  17-21.  Fowler,  Ch. 
Froude  :  Csesar.  Plutarch  :  Tiberi-  j  11.  Cruttwell  :  History  of  Roman 
us  Gracchus,  Caius  Gracchus,  Cato,  j  Lit.  Monroe  :  Source  Bk.  of  Hist. 
Marius,  Crassus,  Pompey,  Cicero,  j  of  Ed.,  Part  II.  Laurie,  pp.  301- 
Munro,  pp.  93-142.  DeCou-l4ii. 
langes,  Bk.  V. 


Part  V.    Graeco> Roman 

Chapter  I. 


Chapter  III. 

Botsford,  pp.  276-291.  Myers,  pp. 

381-427.        Dill  :    Roman   Society. 

I  Bryce  :  Holy  Roman  Empire,    Ch. 

,     ,      ,     „  ,  ;Ch.  II.     Adams  :  Civ.  during M. A., 

Botsford,  Ch.  8.     H.  and  L.,  Chs.  !  (,,,.  3.   Bmerton,  Int.,  Ch.  9    Fish- 

er  :  Beg.  of  Christ.,  Chs.  2-6 and  16, 
17.     Robinson :  Hist,  of  W.  Europe, 


51,  52.  Mj'ers,  Ch.  15.  Plutarch  : 
Brutus,  Caesar,  Antony.  Munro, 
pp.  143-162.  Fowler,  Chs.  9,  10. 
Abbott,  Ch.  12. 


Ch.  2. 


Part  VI,    Romano-Teutonic 

Chapter  I. 
Emerton  :  Int.  to  M.  A.,   Ch.    2. 
Adams  :  Civ.,  Ch.  5.     Penn.  VI.,  3. 


Sec.  4.  Emerton  :  Int.,  Ch.  7. 
Bryce,  Chs.  4,  5.  Adams :  Civ., 
Ch.  7.  Adams  :  Growth  of  Fr.  Na- 
tion, Ch.  2. 


Sees. 


Chapter   II. 
2.— Botsford,  pp.  296-310. 1      Sec.  5.— Church,  Ch.  4.    Gardin- 


Emerton  :  Int.,  Chs.  3-5.  Adams  :  |  er  :  Hist,  of  Eng.,  Chs.  1,2.  Green, 
Civ.,  Ch.  4.  Bryce  :  H.  R.  E.,  Ch.  I  Hist,  of  Eng.  People,  Vol.  I.,  Ch. 
3.  Duruy  :  Hist,  of  M.  A.,  Ch.  2.  U.  Montgomery:  Hist,  of  Eng., 
Creasy,  Ch.  6.     Robinson,  Ch.  3.      !  chs.  3,  4.     Ivce  :  Source  Bk.,    Chs. 

3-5- 


Sec.  3.— Bryce,  Ch.  4.  Duruy, 
Ch.  3.  Emerton  :  Int.,  Ch.  6. 
Thatcher  and  Schwill  :  Europe  in 
the  M.  A.,  Ch.  4.  Adams:  Civ., 
Ch.  4.  Hadley  :  Roman  Law,  Chs. 
I  and  3.  Church  :  Beg.  of  M.  A., 
Ch.6. 


Sees. 


Chapter  III. 
2.— Church,  Ch.  3. 


[  Sec.  3. — Harnack  :  Monasticism. 
j  Emerton  :  M.  E.,  Ch.  16.  Emer- 
!  ton  :  Int.,    Ch.    11.     Adams:   Civ., 


pp.  131-136.  Thatcher  and  Schwill,  Sec.  3.— Adams  :  Civ.,  Ch.  6. 
Ch.  14.  Penn,  II.,  4.  Henderson's  Thatcher  and  Schwill,  Ch.  12. 
Docs.,  p.  274.     Robinson,  Ch,  5.        Henderson's  Docs.,  p.  319.     Emer- 

ton  :  Int.,  Ch.  9.     Robinson,  Ch.  4. 


Sees.  4-6.— Emerton  :  Int.,  Ch. 
7.  Henderson's  Docs.,  p.  314. 
Penn,  IV.,  4.     Morey,  Period  V. 


Sec.  4. — Emerton  :  Int.,   Ch.    12.     i 
Duruy,  Ch.   8.     Robinson,   Ch.   6. 


Chapter  IV. 
Sees.  I,  2.  Emerton:  Int.,  Ch.  10. 
'Emerton  :  M.  E.,  Ch.  11.  Church, 
pp.  86-94.  Duruy,  Chs.  5-7.  Ad- 
ams, Civ.,  Ch.  II.  Oilman  :  The 
Saracens.  Carlyle :  Mohammed. 
Irving:  Mahomet.  Koran.  Creasy, 
Ch..  7. 


Chapter  V. 
Church,  Ch.  7.  Emerton  :  Int., 
Chs.  13,  14.  Adams:  Civ.,  Ch.  7. 
Duruy,  Ch.  9.  Hodgkin  :  Charles 
the  Great.  Robinson,  Ch.  7.  Bryce, 
Ch.  5.     West:  Alcuin. 


LOAN  DEPT. 


RECD 


•■D   m2   |'72 


(Cl795sl0)476B 


61 


GeneraJ  Librarv 
University  of  CalifXn/. 

Berkeley 


YC  36892 


